Running From Your Mistakes
by mattjdupree
Summary: Rather than allow the monsters that had 'fallen down' to turn into the amalgamates, Alphys kills them. Psychological trauma and LOVE abound. Undyne, excited to finally be DOING something as captain of the royal guard, is sent out to find out what happened. What she finds nearly kills her. As Frisk leaves the ruins, a new monster joins the party...
1. Oneshot : Forgiveness

Chapter 1 : Forgiveness

-RFYM-

 **Spoilers for most of the True Lab.**

 **No, really, one of the other characters literally completes the True Lab challenge from the True Pacifist ending, minus a whole lot of the encounters. Don't read if you don't want spoilers.**

-RFYM-

[ENTRY 16:]

no No NO NO NO

. . .

[ENTRY 17:]

I I ccc couldn't I did what i had t

Iii shoulndt' write this down.

[ENTRY 17 DELETED]

-RFYM-

"Hey ASGORE! You said you wanted to see me?" Undyne bounded into the throne room as she shouted, jubilant at getting an assignment direct from on high. Not that she wasn't on high, of course. She was the captain of the royal guard, after all. She was just excited to see things happening at all.

"A moment. These flowers need just a little more water…"

Undyne waited impatiently, bouncing slightly even in the suit of armor she wore. (The one she, of course, had not worn through Hotlands. She was a soldier, not suicidal.)

"There, I… Hmmm…"

Undyne's impatience got the better of her. (Though, she'd never admit anything got the better of her.) "WHAT? What is it?"

"This one spot in the garden. It's strange, like someone turned up the soil in this one spot. I've been puzzling over it for some time now."

Undyne stared blankly. Asgore couldn't seriously be considering asking her to figure out who disturbed one flower in his garden, could he?

"Ah, yes. Sorry. What was it you needed?" He stood, turning to face her.

"... You called me, king. On the phone?"

Asgore blinked. "Ah, yes. Of course. That matter."

Undyne breathed a sigh of relief. The flower thievery wasn't her case.

"Not long ago, my royal scientist had an idea for how to solve the barrier issue."

"Oh?" Undyne was barely listening, still waiting for the actual thing he wanted her to do. She'd pretty much given up on the barrier going down.

"To our knowledge the barrier requires the power of seven human SOULs to break. Her theory was that perhaps the barrier only needed seven SOULs to break down - of any kind."

Undyne tapped her foot impatiently.

"She discovered the substance by which human SOULs persisted after death, and attempted to apply it to the bodies of some monsters who had 'fallen down.'"

Undyne was familiar with the voluntary collection of 'fallen down' monsters a few months before. She wondered when Asgore would ever get to the point.

"The last I heard from her, all the monsters that had fallen had reawoken."

THAT got Undyne's attention. 'Fallen down' was a permanent, comatose state. There wasn't any recovering from that; the only next stage was dust. "What? When? Why didn't I hear about a bunch of monsters getting revived?"

"Well…" Asgore fiddled with the watering pail in his massive, furred hands. "The last time I heard from her was over a month ago."

Undyne exploded. "A MONTH?! You just let your scientist toy around with fallen monsters unchecked for a MONTH?!"

"Alphys is not the kind of scientist to do something untoward regarding the bodies. However, she has often taken long periods of silence to study in the past."

Undyne wanted to throw up her hands in exasperation, but resisted the urge.

"I had just supposed this was one of those… until I received no reply regarding my voicemail about the teacup I found that looked like her. She could never resist fawning over such items…"

"... Did you contact this 'Alphys' AT ALL, apart from THAT voicemail?"

"Oh, of course. I have received calls from the families every week, asking about the state of their relatives in Alphys' care. In turn I have been giving them her number and contacting her myself."

"... And you didn't find ANYTHING wrong with this silence before then?"

"No. I did not."

"So you want me to go to the lab and find out what happened? Is that it?"

Asgore nodded. "I doubt Alphys would have been so completely silent unless something terrible happened."

"So if Alphys is the royal scientist, I assume she'll be in that lab in Hotlands, near the CORE?"

"Yes. And, if you find her and nothing is amiss, do be sure to give her this." Asgore held out a small teacup, shaped like a squat lizard and painted a vibrant yellow.

Undyne stared at the teacup. "Uhh…" Awkwardly, she took it.

Asgore smiled pleasantly. "Have a good day, Undyne."

Undyne left, holding the teacup in the palm of one armored hand.

"Now what could I plant in that bare spot? Hmm… It seems the exact size of one of the golden flowers…"

-RFYM-

"Heh… Heh… HELLO?!"

Undyne let her sack of armor fall to the ground. The Hotlands were - no joke - HOT. Even dragging her armor rather than carrying it… whew!

She banged a fist on the very closed, very HOT metal door to the lab. She could hear her knock echoing inside.

… But nobody came.

"Oh. Oh GREAT!" Undyne looked the door over for some kind of switch. There wasn't one. She looked down at the teacup in her hand.

"... You did this by locking your door, Alphys." Undyne set the teacup down a safe distance from the door, then summoned a spear.

"Hah!"

The spear wedged into the gap between sections of the door, opening it maybe a fingerwidth.

". . ." Undyne stared at the door.

"NGAAAAH!"

-RFYM-

The teacup sat on the rocky ground outside the lab, with only a narrow view through the door. It sat and watched as the fish monster walked back and forth, here and there, everywhere throughout the lab.

The teacup did nothing, even when the fish monster needlessly threw more spears in frustration, despite having released a lot of tension destroying the lab door.

It continued to do nothing as the fish monster pulled out a cell phone.

"Hey Asgore. . . No, it's UNDYNE. . . You don't have phone CONTACTS setup? Even PAPYRUS has. . . Right, YEAH I'm in the lab. . . No, no sign of Alphys. . . No, I mean NO SIGN. It's like nothing in here has been TOUCHED in weeks. . . keep looking?. . . I can't read HALF this nerd crap!. . . FINE! Fine. I get it. . . Yeah, I'll call you if I find anything."

The fish monster hung up. The teacup sat, as the monster approached.

"... Should probably get you inside, eh? No telling what happened to big-you."

The teacup was carried indoors, along with the fish monster's bag of armor. It was set on a table, next to a computer terminal piled high with papers detailing a robot not yet built and plastic models of characters from anime.

It was after setting down the teacup that the fish monster paused, staring at the ground beneath the terminal.

"Oh shit. Dust."

-RFYM-

Undyne followed the dust tracks to where they entered the lab room, at another metal door.

She was about to deal with the door as she had the last, when she realized it was merely an elevator. And there was merely a button next to it. And the button merely didn't work - or refused to.

She dealt with the door.

Beyond was an elevator with two nondescript buttons, and no lights. Undyne pressed the top button. Nothing happened.

Undyne pressed the bottom button and the elevator dropped like a rock.

"Oh SHI- NO NO NO NO!"

At the moment when Undyne was certain she was going to die, mechanical brakes engaged. Previously weightless, she dropped to the floor and lay there, pinned as if lying in pale blue magic.

When the elevator came to a complete stop, it dinged happily and what remained of the door opened. Undyne could see the space beyond because of a very dim glow that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once.

Cautiously, Undyne got to her feet, wary that she had left her armor in the lab above. If this was some kind of trap…

… Why would the king be in on a trap?

Undyne left the elevator, the door slipping shut behind her near silently.

Undyne examined the hallway she was in. It looked… sterile. Tile floor, smooth walls, and everywhere that strange glow.

Painfully aware of her lack of armor, Undyne knelt, finding the trail of dusty footprints again.

-RFYM-

 _A month earlier..._

Alphys landed her tiny fist on the stone door.

She'd been walking for hours, working her way through ridiculously simple puzzles that - now that she thought about it - were probably designed against approach from the other direction.

There had been more than one location where she had needed to rewire spikes in order to continue, finding their usual triggers on the other side. She undid her work as soon as she was past, resetting all the puzzles to their original states.

But now, after passing a sentry station and crossing a bridge, she'd come to a dead end. The door to the Ruins. There was no way through from this side.

But… now… she had no plan. All she had thought was that she had to run - get away from… from…

"Hello? You're early today, Sans. And I thought you preferred to _mandible_ your jokes by word of mouth, rather than knocking literally."

Alphys Eeped, throwing herself into a nearby bush. It rustled loudly.

"... Sans? Are you there?"

Alphys stayed quiet, hoping the stranger would give up and go away. Maybe Alphys could find a way through the door without help. No way was she talking to anybody right now.

"Sans, silence isn't a terribly good joke… You're not Sans, are you?"

Footsteps crunched up the path Alphys had just vacated, stopping at the door. Alphys peeked out and - to her horror - saw a skeleton she recognized. Sans. He sold 'Dogs from a stand in the core.

"uhh, why wouldn't i be sans? also, wow, great prediction. how'd you pull that off?"

"Sans! That wasn't funny at all."

"i wasn't tryin' to be funny. i was honestly curious that you were talkin' to me before i got here. did the other me happen to say anything about a time machine?"

"... Sans, this joke has gone on long enough. Stop it. Come now, let's go back to puns and knock knock jokes."

"gee, fine tori. don't have to be so upset about honest confusion."

Tori? As in Toriel, queen of monsters? Alphys shivered in her bush, glad she hadn't accidentally given herself away to her. The queen had left her husband over his declaration of war on humans. If queen Toriel got wind of what Alphys had done…

Alphys shivered for an entirely different reason than her fear. It was so cold, and she was cold blooded! How thoughtless could she get?! She went through her coat pockets (glad she'd even thought that far ahead back in the lab) but found nothing of use.

"... hold on tori, i hear something."

Alphys froze, in the action sense. She still had maybe fifteen minutes to half an hour before she'd be in any actual danger.

"Sans? What's the punchline?"

"no, i'm serious, i heard something."

"Sans, please, not another confusingly real joke. The last one wasn't funny, and I doubt this one will be either. If you keep going like this, you might find I have a _bone_ or two to pick with you. I'm not sure what it'll take to get through your thick _skull_ but I'd prefer puns."

Alphys remained frozen as the skeleton examined the ground, eventually spotting the trail of disturbed snow Alphys had left to her hiding place in the bush. Suddenly, his left eye flashed, and Alphys found herself standing where a bush had previously been.

"alphys? what are you- i thought you were the royal scientist now. what are you doing out here at the ruins?"

"O- O- Oh!... I- I- I-..." Alphys lapsed into silence.

Sans winced as a clank echoed next to Alphys. Terrified, Alphys glanced at the object. It had been a hidden camera - one of her cameras - but the fall out of the bush now hovering a dozen meters overhead had smashed it.

"oh, right, gotta check on your cameras. sorry about that alphy. i'll just put that bush back now…" The glow in his eye dissipated, and the bush dropped back into the snow around Alphys.

"... Alphys is the royal scientist now?" Toriel asked, her voice small.

"yeah. suppose back in your time it was… uhh… someone else, huh? and alphys was just an egg?"

"... Strange, I cannot even remember who the royal scientist was when I left."

"ehh, we all forget things. every one of us."

Silence reigned for a few moments between them. Alphys realized the cold was seeping into her tail. If she didn't get moving again soon, something bad might happen.

"What are her cameras for, exactly?" Toriel asked.

"well, uh, watching for humans, actually."

"I see." Toriel's voice was colder than the snow around Alphys. "... Is Alphys still here?"

"well, yeah. i think she's working on a camera i might've... accidentally broken."

"... We should talk another time." Footsteps retreated from the door.

Sans stood silently for a moment, then lifted the bush again, giving Alphys a look she couldn't quite describe.

"you haven't touched the camera, alphys. what's wrong?"

Alphys shook her head, shoving her hands into her pockets.

"hey, whatever it is, it's going _tibia_ okay. you know that, right?"

Alphys hunched into herself, ignoring the joke. It was only when she looked back up that she saw Sans' pupils were gone. The bush was resting unhappily in a tree.

"You've gained EXP, Alphys."

Air escaped Alphys' throat without making a sound. She turned and ran, running face-first into a tree. Unceremoniously, she fell into the snow, holding her snout.

-RFYM-

Undyne followed the trail of dust throughout the creepy-as-heck laboratory.

Every dozen meters she'd find a computer screen built into a wall, each one showing another message that pretty much aligned with what the king had told her: getting DETERMINATION and injecting monsters.

After getting out of the first hallway and into the space with the giant, complicated door, she found the first pile of dust.

-RFYM-

"N- No- S- Sans y- you d- don't… Y- You d- didn't see what h- happened d- down t- there!" If Alphys could cry, she'd be in tears.

"Be honest with yourself," the strange shadow of Sans said, "Have you really done the right thing? And, considering what you've done, what will you do now?"

"I- I- I-" Alphys thought hard. This Sans was one she didn't know, couldn't quantify. The Sans she knew wouldn't even stand up from his stand. He was too lazy even to brush the snow off the roof. This Sans… this Sans looked dangerous.

But… she could defend herself. She still had the thing she'd killed… the...

"truthfully, it doesn't really matter what you said. all that matters is that you were honest with yourself."

Alphys collapsed into more whimpering as the old Sans' personality reappeared. How could she have thought that?! How could she have considered hurting Sans?! He just sold hot dogs to the fire monsters!

"alphys, you've got lv 8, just on the cusp of 9. that's… how did that happen?"

Alphys shrank in on herself more, not meeting Sans' eyes. Not looking at Sans' eyes.

"that doesn't just happen, alphys."

"Y- You d- don't know w- what I w- went through!" Alphys put her arms over her head and continued whimpering. She didn't care what Sans did. She'd… Every bit of that LOVE was her fault. All her fault.

A hand touched her shoulder. She jerked, but when she looked up, the snow was gone. Sans was gone. She was sitting in a purple brick hallway, alone.

… how she should be.

-RFYM-

Undyne fumbled with her phone. "Come on, COME ON!"

The phone flashed the same message. [NO SERVICE]

"DAMMIT!" Undyne shoved the phone into a pocket roughly and summoned a spear. She did NOT feel okay about being down here anymore. Since she found the pile of dust in the first room, she'd seen even more almost everywhere she looked. Under things, on top of things, all over the place.

… Like they were running away.

What kind of THING would kill monsters as they were running away? Undyne didn't want to know, and she sure as HELL didn't want to be the next victim. She proceeded onwards, listening for the slightest noise.

-RFYM-

… _the amalgamation of the two monsters pulsated disgustingly. Alphys felt nauseated, horrified. She backed up against one of the lab's many, many mirrors, her claws clicking on the glass as she pressed up against it…_

… " _Alphys, put that down. Nobody's melting; you're seeing things in the dark. Look, just put it-"…_

… _Alphys saw a flash of color in the dusty mirror shard she held. She froze, eyes seeking out its source. It took her a half minute of searching to realize it was herself…_

… _Her claws trembled as she typed the entry, mistyping characters all over the place. It didn't matter. She didn't have to explain herself; it was the only way. It WAS the only way. Was it the only way? Alphys' claws tapped out a few more words, then she slammed her fist onto the delete key. What had she done? WHAT HAD SHE DONE?!_

Alphys woke up screaming and thrashing, tangling herself in the bed's red comforter. She fell to the floor with a loud thud, then curled up and whimpered, mind blank.

The door to the room banged open, an impossibly large monster standing in the doorway. Alphys squeezed her eyes shut, shuddering.

"Are you alright? I heard you screaming."

Alphys whimpered.

"Do not worry, lizard monster, you are safe here. I am Toriel, caretaker of the Ruins. I found you unconscious on one of my rounds; at first I thought you had 'fallen down...'"

Alphys flinched at the mention of the medical condition, then buried herself more in the comforter.

"Are you feeling better now that you've rested? What left you in such a state?"

Alphys mumbled something she didn't even bother to remember.

"I'm sorry, I could not hear you."

"I KILLED P- p- people." Alphys began to shout, before her brain caught up with the situation. Toriel. Queen of monsters, who left her husband over a little declaration of war against the humans that trapped them underground. If Alphys told her about… Oh, a little late for that.

Toriel's expression was shocked. Alphys threw the comforter over herself and curled up further. The queen was probably going to set her on fire. She'd deserve that.

… Alphys was surprised a minute later to find she was still alive. When she peeked out from under the comforter, the queen was kneeling beside her. Alphys shrunk back under the comforter.

"You do seem to regret your actions, do you not?"

Alphys shuddered, nodding.

"Then there is still hope for you to lead a life worth living. Come, let us talk over snail pie. It should be done any… actually, do you smell something burning?"

-RFYM-

After passing through the creepiest operating room in the Underground (the tables were dusty) Undyne found one of the key-slots for the big complicated door that, theoretically, would lead to some important information, like a way out. She hoped.

The only problem: it wasn't a switch, it needed a key. She didn't have a key.

Retreating into the previous room with its sticky operating tables and sinks and broken mirrors, Undyne looked around. On a shard of glass lying on the floor, she spotted a post-it note.

"Dropped the red key in the drain. Have to remember to get it later."

Undyne turned on the water faucets in each sink in turn. It wasn't clear _which_ sink the key was in.

… Then the THING started oozing out of one of the faucets.

Undyne threw spears like a madwoman, shattering the mirror further. The thing ignored the spears, occasionally eating them and growing a little bigger. Her phone rang.

She answered, running past the operating tables and nearly dropping it. "ASGORE! HELP! THERE'S-"

"Come join the fun," Undyne's phone whispered.

She hurled the phone at the ground, where it luckily did not break. Thank God she bought the toughest phones.. "STAY AWAY FROM ME! I'LL KILL YOU! DON'T THINK I'M NOT STRONG ENOUGH!"

The THING froze, its mouths and eyes focusing momentarily. Then it began sliding back across the room, to the sink.

"Yeah! You better run!" Undyne shuddered as the THING oozed down the drain of the sink, then picked up her phone. A red key floated up out of the drain, resting in the basin of the sink. She snatched it and ran to drop it in the key-slot.

She was getting out of here ASAP, and she would let nothing get in her way.

-RFYM-

The snail pie had been better than Alphys had expected. Perhaps the aversion to snails humans had in anime was specific to humans, or maybe a joke on a specific subculture of humans. Alphys didn't have the context to be sure.

Toriel was remarkably quiet on the subject of Alphys' murders, for which Alphys was thankful. It was odd to have normal conversation about snails and spiders and the Ruins after what she'd done. It helped, even if she didn't do much of the talking.

Alphys did notice that both of them ate only with forks. There were no knives.

Toriel took the plates back into the kitchen once the pie was done. She returned, standing in the doorway. Alphys curled inwards, bracing for a real conversation. "Now, I do need to go fetch some ingredients for tomorrow's pie. Can I trust you to remain here by yourself?"

" _No,_ " Alphys thought. She nodded anyway.

Toriel smiled, picking up a bag off her armchair. "I should be back in an hour. In the meantime, try reading one of my books. 72 uses for snails is quite fascinating."

"Th-... Thanks," Alphys mumbled.

Once Toriel left, Alphys stood and explored the house. The kitchen was modest, and entirely without knives. The living room had a pretty hearth that had gone out when Toriel had left. Fire magic, then.

The rest of the house was a hallway with a staircase and three rooms. The staircase led nowhere. The first room was the one Alphys had woken up in. The second was Toriel's. The third was a bathroom, without plumbing.

Alphys considered how hard it would be to upgrade the bathroom to a plumbing system, then dispelled the thought. She couldn't be a drain on queen Toriel for as long as that would take. A week, maybe, if she had tools and pipes. Alphys didn't deserve that long.

Alphys left the bathroom and absently wandered further down the hallway. She saw a flash of yellow moving beside her and froze, looking for it.

… it was herself. She wasn't in her Snowdin jacket anymore; her lab coat was exposed to the world. Her grey lab coat. Grey with dust.

She wondered where her coat was. She wondered where the shard of mirror she'd murdered all those people with was.

Alphys moved back through the house, seeking out her jacket. The mirror had been in the pocket. Find the jacket, find the mirror, do what she deserved. After maybe a half hour's search, she found the coat in her room's wardrobe.

She also found kid's clothes in the wardrobe. And kid's toys in the room. And kid's shoes in a bin. After murdering all those people, she had slept in a kid's room.

Alphys took the coat and ran back to the hallway, her snail pie threatening to come back up. She wasn't a monster. She was a disgusting, vile, EVIL imitation!

… The shard of mirror wasn't in the coat pockets.

Of course Toriel had searched the coat. She couldn't bring a stranger into her home without being sure she was safe! Alphys nearly cried out in frustration. Where was that mirror shard?!

-RFYM-

[ENTRY 13:]

one of the bodies opened its eyes.

Undyne entered the next room, thoroughly unnerved by the last entry in the hallway.

It was some kind of barracks, or morgue. Undyne stabbed each of the beds, then threw off the covers for good measure. Under one of the beds' covers was a yellow key. She pocketed it.

[ENTRY 14:]

Everyone that had fallen down…

… has woken up.

They're all walking around and talking like nothing is wrong.

I thought they were goners...?

Undyne went through the door leading to a T-intersection.

...

At least we got a happy ending out of it?

…

She continued down the hall, suspecting that the next entry was not going to be as calm.

[ENTRY 16:]

no No NO NO NO

Undyne continued onward, holding her spears (plural) even more tightly. No way was she going to be some failed experiment's next victim!

Through a door branching off the hallway, Undyne spotted something moving in a bathtub. Instantly she hurled spears down the hall, smashing the tub and shredding the curtain. A green key tumbled out of the tub.

Wary of anything else that might be there, Undyne retrieved the key.

The sooner she could be out of this place, the better. She wanted to blow it up with a giant bomb. It seemed like the only way to beat these abominations.

And… all that dust everywhere…

-RFYM-

Alphys had found it! It had been simple, really. Toriel would want to keep something as creepy as that away from her. If it was in the house at all, it could be in one of two places: the top of the fridge or the top of the living room bookshelf. Either would be more than tall enough to keep it from Alphys.

As it turned out, it had been the living room bookshelf. Luckily, though, the fireplace had been just small enough for Alphys to climb atop, with the help of the armchair. Alphys fell haphazardly to the ground, shard of mirror in hand, and considered her options.

She didn't want to be in Toriel's way at all. That was the point of this. Alphys deserved a slow, painful death for what she did, but that wasn't what she would get. That wasn't what she was getting. If people insisted on trying to help someone as despicable as her, well, she'd have to get out of their way for them.

Alphys left the house, finding no resistance from the front door. In the yard a large tree with no leaves grew. Alphys looked at it. It was perfect. At most Toriel would have to turn over the ground to hide her dust. She'd be good fertilizer for the tree too.

Alphys stat at the tree's base, gripping the mirror so hard it broke her scales. It would be breaking more than the scales in her palm, soon.

Alphys raised the dusty mirror shard, then brought it down into her own chest.

-RFYM-

[ENTRY 4:]

I've been researching humans to see if I can find any info about their SOULS.

I ended up snooping around the castle...

And found these weird tapes.

I don't feel like ASGORE's watched them...

I don't think he should.

After dropping the yellow key into the slot on the wall and watching it hum to life, Undyne watched the tapes sitting out on the counter.

She didn't agree with the note at all. Asgore HAD to see these. Undyne made a note to retrieve the tapes later.

-RFYM-

Alphys lay on the ground under the tree with no leaves. Even after stabbing herself as hard as she could, somehow, her body was still holding on.

… Had she really gained so much LOVE that her body would refuse to die, even when her mind gave out?

She found the shard lying in the leaves, grasped it, then brought it down again.

-RFYM-

Undyne, finding the next room thick with _airborne dust_ and _freezing cold_ decided to turn back, taking the other direction back at the T-intersection off the barracks.

She found a ventilation control room with a switch. Flipping the switch turned on the ventilation. Simple.

At the end of the hall, the room was no longer choked with dust. It was still darn cold, though, likely due to the four refrigerators.

She ignored the entries on the wall. She'd stopped reading them.

Undyne checked inside each fridge in turn. Each one was empty or contained only labeled lab samples. In the last fridge, she found a blue key sitting on a shelf at her knee height. She pocketed it.

Past the refrigerators was another room, with another key slot. Undyne dropped the green key in, then started walking back.

-RFYM-

Alphys struggled to move, searching for the mirror shard. Somehow, two attacks hadn't been enough. Was she holding back? Was she so pathetic that she couldn't even manage this, either?

How could she still have HP remaining?

"What are you- OH MY GOD!"

Alphys faded out of consciousness.

-RFYM-

Undyne returned to the barracks, then went left into the hallway with golden flowers. Despite being insanely far underground and having little to no light to speak of, the flowers still had green stems and bobbed happily with the breeze Undyne made in passing. It was almost like they REFUSED to admit they couldn't possibly grow here. Undyne complimented them on that.

The first time she saw herself in a mirror there, she jumped in surprise and nearly threw a spear at the mirror. She looked like death warmed over. Walking around the lab had gotten dust onto her feet and pants.

She shuddered, moving onward unmolested.

The end of the hall held a final key slot. The blue key fit perfectly. Undyne ran to go fetch the VHS tapes and get out of there.

Finally.

-RFYM-

Alphys woke up, surprised to be waking up at all. Pathetic. She couldn't even kill herself correctly.

Labored breathing came from beside her. She opened her eyes, seeing the branches of the tree without leaves. Queen Toriel was kneeling beside her, holding out her hand and keeping her eyes closed in concentration.

"W- Why?" Alphys croaked. The queen had just saved her with healing magic. Why would she do that?

Toriel let her arm collapse, taking a moment to breathe deeply. "Your… regret is the sign that you are… not a bad person. You may have gained LOVE, but the regret you feel is the love and kindness of those people you hurt, for whatever reason. Their love and kindness is trying to live on in you. It would be selfish to take that away from them too."

Alphys sucked in a deep breath, then whimpered. She took another, trying to calm down, then outright wailed. She hugged Toriel, crying, while the older monster patted her head.

"Keep living. Do better. For their sakes."

Alphys cried.

-RFYM-

Undyne passed through the complicated-looking door, jogging through the unpowered elevator beyond. There was a hallway leading out another side of the elevator, with several more disabled lab-entry screens.

Undyne ran into the next room. There was a big, complicated looking control board. Some kind of contraption was rigged to hold a big switch in the middle in the "off" position. It looked like it was timed to trigger some time after someone left it.

Undyne smashed the contraption with a spear, flicked the switch, then turned around.

… but it was too late. The THING was back, and it didn't look like it was going to go away this time. Undyne's phone rang.

"G- GET AWAY FROM ME!"

Undyne's phone grew more insistent.

"NO! SCRAM!"

The THING started to approach. Undyne dropped the VHS tapes and summoned a spear.

"YOU ASKED FOR THIS, BLOB!"

-RFYM-

It was several days later. Toriel had refused to leave Alphys alone at any time, even moving her armchair into the child's room. When Alphys refused to set foot in the room again, she moved the chair to her own room and slept in it, forcing Alphys to take her bed.

For food, she'd taken Alphys to buy doughnuts and Spider Cider from a number of spiders living a few puzzles away.

Apparently, though, this situation was finally as untenable for Toriel as it was for Alphys. It seemed they were finally going to have "the talk."

Alphys sat at the dining room table. Toriel sat across from her. Alphys' view of the queen was unobstructed, as the pot of flowers had been pushed a little way to the side.

Toriel held the dusty mirror shard in her paws. Alphys fidgeted, looking at it.

"... Funny. I have saved your life now, and yet I do not even know your name."

Alphys looked at her claws under the table.

"What is, your name?"

"... a-..." Alphys mumbled.

"Sorry?"

"A- Alphys."

"... Ah."

Alphys sat quietly. Maybe now the queen knew that she was the one with the network of cameras setup to catch humans she would let her kill herself. Maybe she'd even kill her herself.

"Who were they?"

"... W- Who?"

In answer, Toriel pointed the reflective side of the mirror at Alphys. The lizard monster flinched.

"... I- innocent m- monsters. W- with f- families…"

Toriel visibly stiffened. "Then… why?"

"B- because I- I m- messed u- up. A- an e- exp- experiment went w- wrong. Th- they..."

"They…?"

Alphys fell silent, horrified by the memories.

"Alphys."

Alphys blinked. "I… They…" She took a deep breath, shuddering. "I w- watched t- two of th- them m- melt. Th- there was nothing I c- could do!"

"What necessitated your... killing… them?"

"I- It w- was th- that or w- watching them a- all m- melt. I c- couldn't… W- With all the DETERMINATION they h- had, who knew what th- the thing they b- became m- might've d- done!"

Toriel's gaze held none of the fire Alphys expected, only confusion. "Why did they… melt? What protected you?"

Alphys broke down, telling her everything she knew about DETERMINATION.

-RFYM-

Undyne stabbed again and again, dodging nimbly away from the flecks of white it threw out that burst into little mounds on the ground.

It was invincible! Its grey, goey surface just solidly ignored her spear, bouncing it right off. The black void in its mouths absorbed her magic, meaning she'd have to re-summon the spearhead. She just couldn't-

Undyne saw it. A white glow within the black void. Not a SOUL, but something vulnerable. She stabbed down at it with her magic spear.

-RFYM-

Toriel remained stoic throughout Alphys' explanations and excuses. When Alphys finally ran out of steam, sitting and gasping and whimpering, the queen picked up the shard of mirror.

Alphys braced. Finally she would get what she deserved. The fireplace dimmed as Toriel focused her fire magic…

The fire resumed its merry crackle. Toriel rolled the new glass-and-lead marble across the table to the gaping Alphys.

"You couldn't have known the DETERMINATION would have the effect it did."

"B- but i- if I h- hadn't been s- so-"

"No. You _couldn't_ have known. Not without losing even one of them. It was just a mistake that you… failed them all, rather than just one."

"S- See? I- I'm just a u- useless-"

"Alphys, please. You're not useless. You thought you had a solution to the barrier. You explored realms of science most monsters can't even dream of."

"I- I k- killed more m- monsters than in anyone's w- worst nightmare. U- Uncountable-" Hardly uncountable. She'd counted herself. She had to be sure she got every single one, didn't she? No DETERMINATION laced monsters could escape.

"Stop it. Stop fixating on that one mistake and think of something new. What could you do now? How can you start to atone for the mistake?"

"I- Is that e- even p- possible?"

"Of course. Now, think."

-RFYM-

Undyne struggled to stand, using a spear as a walking stick and carrying the VHS tapes under one arm.

After she'd hit the weak spot in that thing, it had burst like a balloon. A red, glowing goop spattered all over the place, including on Undyne. It had evaporated from the metal, but it stuck to her and sank into her scales.

… and now her legs felt like jelly. Getting back to the elevator was a nightmare, but Undyne was DETERMINED to do it. She couldn't fail!

And she didn't. She pushed one of the many buttons on the panel, not caring which one. The elevator whisked off as she thought about what she had to do next. Asgore needed to see the tapes.

She was DETERMINED to get them to him.

-RFYM-

Toriel was… in a state. Alphys had decided to help the spiders build the colony they were running the bake sale. In turn, the spiders were watching out for the lizard and getting her food. Alphys had even moved out to help the spiders more, and to more thoroughly explore the ruins.

Now Toriel was alone again, waiting for a human that would inevitably fall.

… and inevitably be killed by ASGORE.

The fireplace flared as she thought about her ex. He'd _destroyed_ Alphys with that stupid experiment. She was literally trying to kill herself for what she'd needed to do to contain the result.

Though if it wasn't Alphys' fault then it shouldn't be Asgore's, Toriel blamed him anyway. What if it had worked? What would the humans think when they saw a species that would murder children for power? That would cannibalize their dead and dying for power?

The monster species would not survive that war. Or, if they did, there would never be peace until either they or the humans were wiped out.

Toriel heard a voice echo down the basement hallway. She ignored it. She couldn't make jokes at a time like this.

Though… she hadn't spoken to Sans for several weeks now. He might stop coming entirely.

"H- Hello." Toriel said halfheartedly, sitting down by the door.

"hey. what's with the _long_ face? something got your _goat_? it's been ages since i could _cheese_ a response outta ya."

Toriel snickered. "I am sorry about missing you for so many days. I have been dealing with a certain issue that fell into my domain."

"... a human?" Sans was all serious now.

"No. As it turns out, it was Asgore's royal scientist, the one we were talking about before I… stormed off."

"aww, jeez tori, don't tell me you hurt her or somethin'." If Toriel wasn't mistaken, Sans' voice had a hint of… anxiety?

"No, of course not. She… She tried to kill herself, Sans. I barely got to her in time."

"oh."

"She's better now, helping the spiders build up their colony."

"why'd she try to kill herself? she hasn't been seen over here for weeks."

"She ran away from an experiment that went awry." Toriel's voice dropped. "An experiment that should never have been allowed to go forward."

"what are you goin' to do about it? storm back to your ex then storm off again, just to get his _goat_?"

Toriel snorted with barely contained laughter, even as her fury mounted. "SANS!"

"sorry. 's what i'd use to cheer up my bro."

"... I couldn't do something like that anyway. Even with her helping the spiders, sometimes it seems like seeing me is the only thing holding her together."

"well, you could always give asgore a call."

"A… call?"

"dang tori, i'm surprised alphys didn't lose her mind without even a phone down there."

"She did lose her mind, Sans! That wasn't funny."

"sorry, sorry. here, take one of my cell phones. take two, i have like five from this one weird prank."

"Oh, um…" Toriel pushed open the door slightly, reaching out a paw. A skeletal hand dropped two plastic bricks into her palm. She retreated. "How exactly do I-"

"just ask alphys. i think my bro's coming, and it'd be hard to keep my promise if he setup a puzzle right outside the door."

"Sans-"

But he was gone.

-RFYM-

Undyne stumbled onward, not even questioning that the elevator had brought her directly to New Home. She had a goal and she was going to follow it through.

The judgement hall seemed long with her first step. Her two-hundreth brought her over the far threshold.

When she stumbled into the throne room, Asgore looked up from his flowers, startled. "Undyne? What-"

"They're all DEAD. Every last monster down there, Alphys included. There was dust EVERYWHERE!"

"What happened to _you_?"

"Nothing! I'm FINE! Look, I found a bunch of tapes that you NEED to watch!"

"Do the tapes have something to do with-"

"Not with the lab, but they're IMPORTANT!"

"If you insist, I have something that could play them."

-RFYM-

"N- No! I- I'd r- rather n- not get t- too involved in t- technology again. N- not after… a- anyway, j- just keep the phones. A- and to call someone, t- type their n- number and press the green b- button. If you m- mistype a k- key, press the red b- button."

"Thank you, Alphys. Now, what is Asgore's number?"

Alphys looked down, mumbling. "W- well if he d- didn't change it a- after m- my m- mistakes…" She gave Toriel the number.

"Thank you."

"O- of c- course."

Toriel nodded to a few of the spiders on her way out of that section of the ruins, then returned home.

-RFYM-

"Ha, this time I got YOU! I left the cap on… ON PURPOSE! Now you're smiling for noooo reason! Hee hee hee!"

Asgore closed his eyes and looked away from the small camera's blank screen. "Undyne, why-"

"SHH! THIS is where it happens!"

"But Undyne," he looked at her. She looked even worse than when she'd limped in. It almost looked like some kind of goop was pooling in her dust-covered boots, "You need help!"

"SHUT UP! Listen!"

The tape continued. "...tried to make butterscotch pie for Dad, right? The recipe asked for cups of butter but we accidentally put in buttercups instead… Yeah! Those flowers got him really sick. I felt so bad. We made Mom really upset. I should have laughed it off, like you did… Um, anyway, where are you going with this?... Huh? Turn off the camera?... Ok."

The tape ran out. Undyne fumbled with the camera, pressing the button three times before it actually responded. Asgore frowned on as she pulled the previous tape out and shoved the next one in. It began to play.

"I… I don't like this idea, Chara… Wh- What? N- No, I'm not… big kids don't cry. Yeah, you're right… No! I'd never doubt you, Chara. Never! Y- yeah! We'll be strong! We'll free everyone. I'll go get the flowers."

Asgore's eyes widened. His face darkened.

"This. This is why… those tapes are important." Undyne blinked, swaying. "That human your kid loved so much… It was their fault Asriel crossed the barrier!"

Asgore's expression was dark, brooding. "Undyne, why did Alphys try to keep this from me?"

Undyne's sway worsened.

"Undy-"

The fish monster collapsed to one side. She tried to summon a spear to catch herself, but the magic effect shattered as soon as she put weight onto it. She hit the ground with a wet splat.

"Undyne!" Asgore summoned his own magic, reaching out and Checking on Undyne.

UNDYNE | LV 3 | HP 002/280

2 HP. Undyne only had two injuries between her current state and death. Even as Asgore watched, the number ticked down to 1.

He ran like a madman for the tea cabinet.

-RFYM-

Toriel waited a day before she finally worked up the courage to call Asgore. She spent the time coming up with exactly the choice words she wanted to send his way. She even had written herself a script.

She sat in her armchair - once again by the fire - holding the script in her lap and one of the cell phones in her paw. Once more she re-read the script, checking that it said everything she meant to say.

She stared at her first line, her introduction. "Dreemurr, I need to talk to you." Her magic flared, a blast of fire setting the paper on fire. How stupid a line was that?! How had she thought that would be a good idea? She shoved the paper into the fireplace, letting it burn itself the rest of the way through.

Toriel sat for a moment, now looking at the phone. She could take the time to write a new script, or she could just call.

…

She pressed the green button.

… Ring… Ring… Ring… Ring… Ring...

"Hello." It was Asgore's voice. He sounded solemn.

"Dreem-"

The voice on the other end cut her off. "You have reached the answering machine for King Asgore. Sadly, I cannot answer the phone at this time. After the loud tone, speak your message and your phone number and I will find time to contact you."

Beeeep!

Toriel blinked for a few moments, trying to process the message. Then she began to talk.

"Dreemurr… this is Toriel. I… I know about the DETERMINATION experiments. I can't BELIEVE you!

"First you declared war on the humans after we lost BOTH of our own offspring, then… then you had those six human CHILDREN... MURDERED!

"And… and now this. You weren't satisfied with just humans, no, you had to do THAT to fallen monsters!

"How many more, Asgore? How many more innocent lives are you willing to put on your conscience in some vain attempt to free us?

"I hope you're happy now. Alphys is devastated. She wouldn't even let me give her a cell phone. The most advanced technology she works with is plumbing.

"She tried to kill herself, Dreemurr. I hope freedom is worth that to you.

"I never want to see you again."

Toriel pressed the red button and dropped the phone before she could lose control and melt it. She took a deep, shuddering breath…

Queen Toriel began to cry.

Unseen to her, a yellow claw slipped off the windowsill. Alphys turned and ran. When a spider had mentioned Toriel was making the call, she just had to listen in.

Now, more than ever, she just wanted to work with the spiders and ignore her life from before.

-RFYM-

Undyne groaned, stretching. "Holy CRAP I feel like sh-" She opened her one eye, observing the grey walls of king Asgore's castle. "Shells. I feel like I got buried in shells, or something."

She sat up, finding the king himself standing beside her. She was in some kind of bed, in what looked like a kid's room. Asgore's face was all seriousness, solemnity, and a little of something else. "Undyne. You very nearly died."

Undyne's cocky grin faded. "DIED? Hah, c'mon, it wasn't nearly that close. I just… got tired!"

Asgore frowned further. "You collapsed. I watched your HP drop from two to one."

Undyne's grin wiped clean off her face. Had it really been that close? And, what was still hurting her in the castle?

A flash of magic washed over her. Asgore proffered a cup of tea. "Here, drink more of this."

Undyne took the proffered cup. It was half empty. "What is this?"

"Golden flower tea."

The cup paused mid-way to her lips. "Yeah, uh, sorry, the only tea I can stand is Sea Tea." She looked around, noticing the two beds in the room. "How long was I out, anyway?"

"Two days."

"TWO DAYS?!" Why had she been out that long? What had happened? Did he declare war on the humans a second time? (Could you declare double war, was that a thing?)

"Undyne, try to calm yourself. I will catch you up on what has happened."

Undyne stared at him, waiting for him to continue. Keeping her patience in check was the hardest battle she had fought to date, excluding that THING in the lab.

"... Toriel called-"

"WHAT?! The queen's still alive?!" The expression on Asgore's face was… pained, to say the very least. Something in that gave Undyne pause, after her outburst.

"... I need your honest opinion on something."

"Of course!"

"Undyne, I need your real opinion. Do not protect me from the truth of this."

Undyne felt cold. What was Asgore getting at? "Uh… OK?"

Asgore clasped his paws, bowing his head. "Am… I… a bad person?"

Undyne was taken aback. "What kind of question is THAT?"

Asgore looked up.

"You're KING ASGORE! You're holding the Underground together!"

The king looked away. "Undyne… I've killed children. I've sent you, others to kill _children_. And Alphys' experiments…"

Undyne snorted. "HUMAN children. Humans are the fu- freaks that locked us down here! And you couldn't have known what Alphys would let happen to all those fallen monsters!

Asgore was silent.

"What did Toriel say to you, in her call?" Undyne asked.

Asgore stared past Undyne, through the far wall. "Have you ever driven someone to suicide?"

"WHAT! Asgore, you can't-"

"Undyne, please, let me finish-"

"NOPE!" Undyne threw herself out of the bed, wrapping Asgore's cape around him and picking him up.

"What are you doing?"

"THAT conversation is OVER thankyouverymuch." Undyne carried the king out of the room, picking a direction and hoping it led to the castle exit. "As your guard captain, I must protect you at all costs! EVEN FROM YOURSELF!"

Something flared within Undyne's SOUL, a slight burning. She grinned as her fiery passion for her position in the royal guard roared to life.

"Undyne, you can't-"

"OH YES I CAN!" Carrying the king of monsters with one arm, Undyne pulled out her cell phone. Not only was it still intact, it still had power!

If there was one person in the kingdom to help someone with a self-esteem problem, Undyne knew exactly who it was. "HEY! PAPYRUS! I have something IMPORTANT for YOU to do!"

"WOWIE! FOR ME?!"

-RFYM-

 _Eleven months later…_

Alphys ran like the wind through the spider tunnels. More accurately, Alphys ran like someone with a body height of 1.4 meters and a weight of 130 kilograms should run: a lot slower than she'd like.

The spiders had told her (through an interpretative dance) that there was a human in Toriel's basement hallway. That had been all it took to send Alphys running.

Toriel would never let a human down there unless she was letting the human out into the Underground at large.

Alphys came to the spider-cave side of a false wall. Carefully, she pulled it out of the way.

Before her, a young human child stood clutching a toy knife. The human jumped upon seeing Alphys emerge from the wall.

"H- hey! W- wait! I'm not here to h- hurt you!"

The human ever-so-slightly relaxed.

"I- I want to go with you! I w- want to help you!"

The human cocked their head.

"I… I c- can be helpful! I used t- to work out th- there in Hotlands."

The human looked Alphys up and down, noting that she was bundled up in a coat.

"W- well, Snowdin is between here and H- Hotlands… A- Anyway, would that be alright? W- Will you let me go w- with you?"

The human considered this for a moment. They nodded.

"W- Well… L- Let's go!"

Alphys and the human pushed through the ruins door, into the cold air of Snowdin.

The thought that Toriel might _not_ have let the human go never crossed Alphys' mind.

-RFYM-

"WOWIE ASGORE! YOU'RE FASTER TODAY!" Papyrus and Asgore skidded to a stop at the end of the hall, the king setting down the royal enthusiasm guard he'd been carrying up and down the judgement hall.

Undyne smiled at the scene. Under Papyrus' tutelage, Asgore's self-image had improved dramatically. Undyne was only a little worried that a bit of Papyrus' pacifism was bleeding over too. If a human appeared, well, that was her job.

Bringing Asgore to Papyrus that day had probably saved the king's life. He'd seemed so down in the dumps when they'd been talking…

"NOW MR. KING SIR, REMEMBER TO KEEP SMILING!"

Even better, with Papyrus finally "a part of the royal guard" (in a counselling position) his weird brother had enough free time to get himself the position of royal scientist. Apart from cleaning up the under-lab and turning the upper-lab into a trash storm, he hadn't really done that much. Nonetheless, he was doing a better job than Alphys had.

"THAT'S A GOOD SMILE MR. DREEMURR! NOW LET'S TAKE A BREAK FOR SOME SPAGHETTI!"

Sadly, Papyrus' cooking never had improved in his time in his new royal position.

"Papyrus, I'm certain I'll be fine with my tea."

"NONSENSE! A DIET OF PURE SPAGHETTI IS THE ONLY PROPERLY BALANCED DIET FOR PEOPLE AS GREAT AS WE ARE! NYEH HEH HEH!"

Undyne shivered, remembering the spaghetti tea incident. That had not ended well.

Suddenly, Undyne's phone rang. Perplexed as to who would be calling her at this time of day, she answered.

"heya. got some news for ya."

"Sans? What's up?"

"cameras at the ruins picked up a human coming out."

"A HUMAN?!" Undyne's shout halted Papyrus' self-esteem student in his tracks. Under his white fur, Asgore went pale. "Where? I'm on my way-"

"don't blow a bubble out of your gills, undyne. i'm already there. i don't think this human's going to be hurting anyone."

"I don't CARE if they're not going to be hurting anyone!" Undyne shouted, "I'm going to be hurting THEM!"

"look, the old royal scientist is there with 'em. i'm going to go up and say hi."

"SANS DON'T YOU DARE!" The line was already dead.

"UNDYNE? IS SANS MAKING PUNS AGAIN?"

Undyne stood, gripping the phone in her hand and shaking. Hadn't she made it clear that humans couldn't be trusted? That they couldn't be friends with monsters? Asgore had told everyone what that first human had done…

Why the HELL were Alphys and Sans falling for this human's tricks?

"... The last human?" Asgore asked, almost a year of self-esteem and happiness training sloughing off in an instant.

"The LAST human," Undyne corrected.

-RFYM-

 **A/N:**

 **Thank you for reading** _ **Running From Your Mistakes**_ **! I hope I managed to capture what the characters would do in this circumstance rather well.**

 **Oh, you're upset that it's over? Well, sorry. I would continue, but that would require defining Frisk. As it is, I barely managed to leave Frisk's actions in the ruins ambiguous. Alphys would run into Frisk here the same way, whether Toriel is dead or not. I also had to make Frisk bring Alphys because of the following Undyne scene.**

… **And I'm sure Sans is silently freaking out as he tries to figure out how to keep his promise.**

 **In short, it's over and done with here because I want to leave any run as an open possibility.**


	2. Chapter 2 : Snow and Dust

Chapter 2 : Snow and Dust

-RFYM-

 **A/N:**

 **I know I said it'd be a oneshot, but how could I say no to a review? Also, I really want to see how Alphys messes up Frisk's journey.**

 **I'm writing this with certain variables about Frisk already set in mind, but we're not going to see from their perspective, so it's up to us and Alphys to figure out the human's intent and worth.**

 **Good luck, have fun.**

-RFYM-

"H- Human, d- do you h- hear s- some-"

The footsteps Alphys definitely heard stopped right behind the two of them.

"been a while, alphys."

Alphys spun around, in tandem with the human. "S- Sans! Y-"

"so who's this?" he asked, interrupting her.

"O- Oh! Th- This i- is-"

"a human, in the underground."

Alphys stared at Sans. They hadn't worked together much, but it was still surprising he had such a good idea of what a human looked like. "Th- They're not-"

"anyway, much as i love trading a few good jokes, we have to get moving, fast."

"Wh- What?" Alphys was at a complete loss for where the conversation was, or where it was going. She glanced at the human, who looked just as bewildered.

"right, so, i've got this old guard station up ahead past this bridged pit. technically i'm in hotland, and since i see one of the guard dogs ahead, now would be a good time for all of us to not be here." He grabbed Alphys and the human by their respective shoulders and spun them to face the bridge. "walk with me."

The three of them walked (well, more of stumbled in a group) across the bridge. Stepping off the other side, Alphys and the human exchanged confused glances as they were now standing before a massive house lit with old, broken Christmas lights. They had the "old" down, but "guard station"?

"come on in. cameras 'round this part of snowdin went bad years ago."

The human began to follow Sans inside. Alphys was more concerned with the what she noticed behind them, or the sudden change in that. The bridge and Ruins door were gone, replaced with the town of Snowdin. "S- Sans, h- how did we-"

Sans unlocked the house with a key. "shortcut. hurry, inside."

Alphys had no viable option but to go inside. The interior of the house was dusty (thankfully, very clearly not that kind of dust) but still quite serviceable. The human looked around for a few moments, before settling on the couch with a puff of disturbed particulates.

"right, this should be safe for all of an hour, if undyne doesn't expedite anything." He wandered a bit into the room, not bothering to turn on the lights. Enough light came in from the window outside to make everyone dimly visible.

Alphys joined the human on the sofa, kneading her tail with her claws. "S- Safe from what?"

Sans stood in front of them, by the coffee table. "safe from undyne and the royal guard."

The former royal scientist's breath caught in her throat. "W- What?! W- Why would they b- be-"

"look, things down here aren't all sunshine and rainbows. after you happened to the lab, asgore sent undyne down to search the place. undyne found those tapes you had of the prince and the first fallen human."

Sans proceeded to tell them about everything that had happened since. Undyne had to get Asgore emotional help, but on top of that, she talked Asgore into releasing the tapes and redoubling the Underground's lust for the last human SOUL. Every monster out there was willing to fight to the death if it meant being the one to get that SOUL to their king, to take revenge for the prince.

Alphys curled into a little ball on the couch. She had really fouled things up, hadn't she? Oh, running away had made everything so much worse. And now the whole Underground wanted to kill any human, even innocent little children! The human patted Alphys awkwardly, their other hand restlessly fidgeting on their lap. The Toy Knife was out of sight.

"so, yeah, not so great."

As if the previous news hadn't been bad enough, Sans mentioned that Undyne had taken a guess at what had happened down in the True Lab, given queen Toriel's voicemail to Asgore. A warrant for her arrest (or her dust) had been issued.

"and that's on top of the fact that getting through the barrier… well, the human won't be able to make it on their own. their SOUL isn't strong enough."

The human stopped patting Alphys, a modicum of surprise showing on their face. Alphys sniffled. "I a- actually e- expected that a- and accounted f- for it… t- though that w- was b- based on the Underground as I l- left it. I- If e- everyone i- is out to get us… I'll n- never g- get access t- to m- my-"

Sans' eye sockets widened. "woah, wait, what was your plan? you weren't seriously… oh c'mon alphys, is that really the best way to-"

The human looked between them, confused. Alphys stopped trying to hold up a facade. "I c- can't go b- back to a normal l- life w- with this LOVE! A- And n- nobody w- would m- miss me. J- Just l- look at what I d- did to the Underground!"

The human tugged on Alphys' coat, but got no response beyond furthering her crying and causing her to curl into an even tighter ball. They looked pointedly at Sans, cocking their head in accusatory question.

"alphys! jeez, calm down, okay? i, uhh, happen to know the royal scientist rather well. there's just sorta one problem."

Sniffling and wiping at tears with the collar of her coat, Alphys calmed down enough to look at Sans.

"well, that royal scientist is me. and i kinda let slip where you guys were and that i was nearby before i actually met you guys."

The human and Alphys both stared at Sans in shock.

"admittedly, wasn't very well thought out. and, uh, if i'm not back there in between five and fifteen minutes to tell the rampaging undyne that you got past me, there'll probably be a warrant for my arrest too."

The silence afterward stretched on seemingly endlessly. Alphys felt a quiet rage building in her SOUL. How could Sans have betrayed her like that? Wasn't Sans her friend? Hadn't he helped her when she ran away from everything? How DARE he-

The rage snapped. Alphys had considered hurting him, again. She exploded into wailing, curling all the way back into an inconsolable ball.

"hey, look, we'll figure this out. just let me, uh…" Sans was sweating as the human stared at him accusatorily, possibly upset that he'd upset Alphys. "i'll come back in a few minutes, okay? just let me deal with undyne." He walked briskly into the kitchen, then his footsteps stopped.

Alphys continued to bemoan life, and her position in it, for a number of minutes. It was only once she'd whimpered her throat raw that she began to slowly uncurl.

It was only then that she noticed the human was gone.

-RFYM-

Papyrus trudged through the snow slowly. Though Undyne and several other guards had begun sprinting ahead at the first sign of snow, he wasn't really feeling it.

Ever since Sans had gotten the job of royal scientist, Papyrus had hardly gotten to see his brother. Undyne always kept both of them busy with various things, though Papyrus suspected Sans was just too lazy to do most of those things.

What that meant, though, was that in some ways he'd had to grow up. He knew what capturing the human meant. He knew what the arrest warrant for the former scientist meant too. Monsters just didn't have the compassion they'd had before, not with Undyne fueling the king's vengeance (which Papyrus repeatedly pointed out quite loudly was very bad for his pupil's mental state.)

… Undyne and the other guards were going to kill the human, and Alphys. Killing. Death. Permanent.

Papyrus saw the eaves of his old house coming into view, the unmaintained Christmas lights now unlit and falling down in places. He sighed and let his gaze drop to his boots.

Now, considering Undyne had just run ahead, it was with some considerable surprise that Papyrus looked up and spotted a human not a dozen paces ahead of him, exactly like they'd shown everyone in the pictures, but more squinty.

"WHAT? ARE YOU A… HUMAN?"

The human froze in place.

"YOU ARE A HUMAN, AREN'T YOU?"

They stared at him, looked over his shoulder, then back at him. Papyrus looked over his shoulder himself. In the distance, past the cliffs of Waterfall, a turret of Asgore's castle cut above the skyline.

"... YOU WANT TO REACH THE BARRIER." It wasn't a question. The human's intent was rather clear.

The human nodded.

"WELL, I…" Papyrus felt his mind tearing itself in two. On the one hand, he wanted fame, friends, more money than he already had, maybe even time to see Sans. On the other, this human, they were so small. They reminded him of Sans - they were his height.

Papyrus shook his head. Sans would want him to put on his brave face.

"I AM THE GREAT PAPYRUS, HUMAN! I WILL CAPTURE YOU, FOR ASGORE, FOR UNDYNE, AND FOR MONSTER KIND!"

The human held up a tiny, plastic Toy Knife. It shook in their grip.

The battle started.

-RFYM-

Undyne walked over the ground forward and backward. Sadly the mad rush of all the guards had eliminated any sign of footprints on the east side of the tiny pit's bridge. All she had to go on was the west side's line of footprints going up to the bridge.

That infuriated her to no end. That criminal and that human were around. She was DETERMINED to bring them to justice.

Finally satisfied that there was no further evidence to be gained leaving the west side in pristine condition, Undyne crossed. As soon as she was across, several of the dog guards ran past, sniffing out the area ahead.

One of them caught a recent scent immediately. They grabbed a figure in a blue hoodie and dragged him out from behind a tree. Lying on his back, Sans looked up at Undyne. "heya. sorry. must've fallen asleep. you know how hard it is to find time to rest my old _bones_? _tibia_ honest, it's a real _halibut_ challenge."

"Where ARE THEY, SANS?!" Undyne roared.

"who? sorry, must've dozed off after meeting alphys and that hum-"

Undyne's one good eye began to twitch. "JOKES, SANS?! This is the future of our SPECIES! Now tell me where they went, or ELSE!"

Sans stared at Undyne expectantly.

"WHAT?!"

"exactly. or else what?"

Sans' ever-present smile froze on his face, as Undyne set an armored boot on his sternum and summoned a spear pointed directly at his face.

"uhh… i'm not sure asgore would-"

"As long as we get that SOUL, I'll MAKE SURE he doesn't even lift a FINGER!" Undyne snarled.

Sans looked around at the other royal guards, searching for some kind of friendly face. He did have friends in the royal guard, right? His eyes swept across as many faces as he could see from his admittedly awkward positioning. Nobody even seemed perturbed that their guard captain was threatening to kill the royal scientist.

"jeez undyne. why didn't you just ask nice-"

Undyne began leaning her weight on his ribcage. Sweat beaded on his skull. She was serious?!

"hey, they went east! they want to get to the barrier to-"

Undyne stuck her spear under his chin, tilting his head back. "How do they plan to get through the barrier? Killing Asgore?!"

"oh come on, you put out the arrest warrant yourself. what do you think the old scientist has planned?"

"I don't know, I'm not the science type."

"well, her job was to research making monster SOULs persist like boss monster SOULs. technically, with some DETERMINATION, she could take any monster's SOUL." Sans was probably digging this hole deeper. It wasn't like Undyne wasn't already hunting the lizard and the human, but now…

Undyne finally removed her foot from his chest. She spat on him, speckling his hoodie. "Thank you for DOING YOUR JOB, for once!" She turned to the other guards. "Back this way! Somehow they got past us, but we won't be letting them do that again!"

Sans lay on the ground as the guards ran after Undyne. He knew the royal guard was a little more intent on their jobs now, but when had they become like that?

"When we get to Snowdin, search all the houses! I want no basement left unchecked. They could be trying to take a monster's SOUL anywhere along this route!"

Was his brother like that now too? Sans realized to his mounting horror that he didn't know.

Then he realized what searching the houses meant, and struggled to his slippered feet.

-RFYM-

Alphys wandered eastward, hoping against hope that her lapse hadn't doomed the human. Where could the small child have gone? Alphys couldn't have been crying for too long. She would check her phone, but she didn't carry one after the whole thing with the True Lab.

In the distance, Alphys saw someone's bone attack reach as high as the treetops. At first she thought it might be Sans standing up for them, but he wouldn't have fought the guard. If not Sans, then who?

Alphys broke into the best run she could manage all bundled up in her coat. Whoever it was, it likely wasn't a friend to the human.

-RFYM-

Papyrus heaved for air. Preparing that exceedingly powerful normal attack in only one turn (as he had successfully done) had taken a surprising amount of energy. Perhaps it had even taken more than a Special Attack!

"WELL HUMAN…! IT'S CLEAR… YOU CANT… DEFEAT ME!"

The human's Toy Knife shook in their hand. Papyrus didn't need to check his HP to know he was, at most, one hit away from being dust. Wielded by a human, even a plastic toy did staggering damage.

"YEAH! I CAN SEE YOU SHAKING IN YOUR BOOTS!"

The human was indeed shaking, though they weren't wearing boots. The knife wavered in the air. If Papyrus kept fighting, that human would kill him.

"THEREFORE I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, ELECT TO GRANT YOU PITY!"

The human cocked their head.

"I WILL SPARE YOU, HUMAN! NOW IS YOUR CHANCE TO ACCEPT MY MERCY!" Papyrus fell to one knee, opening his arms for a hug. If he acted confident enough, maybe the human wouldn't kill him? If he was friendly enough, like he used to be?

The human threw their knife away in the snow and ran at him. Papyrus almost flinched, until tiny, warm arms wrapped around his slightly bulky 'armor,' (if it could be called that.)

He hugged the human back, and the fight was-

"H- Hey! W- What do you think you're doing w- with that h- human?!"

Papyrus leapt to his feet, sweeping the human into his arms, bridal style. "FOR YOUR INFORMATION, YELLOW LIZARD MONSTER, I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, AM CAPTURING THEM!"

Papyrus turned to flee, the human still in his arms. He couldn't be seen helping the human, but he really couldn't live with himself if he didn't. Maybe Sans would be able to help. No doubt, with all his cameras in that lab, he was watching this at this moment.

If Sans wouldn't help him, nobody would.

"H- Hey! P- Put that human d- down! O- Or else!"

Papyrus started walking in the direction of Hotlands and the lab, carrying the human. "I MUST BRING THIS HUMAN TO ASGORE IMMEDIATELY! I CANNOT DELAY!" Leaning in close to the human, he whispered, "I'M GOING TO BRING YOU SOMEWHERE SAFE FROM THEM. DON'T BE FRIGHTENED!"

"I- I said p- PUT THEM DOWN!"

Papyrus kept walking. He could see the bridge to Waterfall just ahead.

"NOW!"

Papyrus stepped onto the bridge. He was acting in the capacity of a royal guard. Surely no monster would want to-

The Toy Knife cut through his vertebrae like they were already dust. Moments later, his body was already gone and his head rested on the human's chest. Their face stared back, horror stricken.

"I'M SORRY HUMAN. I TRIED…"

The world faded out. Had his head turned to dust, too? All he could feel was fragments of his SOUL.

All he could feel was fragments.

All he could feel was…

All he could feel…

All he…

He…

All…

-RFYM-

LOVE Increased.

Alphys felt the sickening warm glow of her LOVE increasing. The human had eyes only for the dust now coating their sweater, which they struggled frantically to brush off. A few pieces of the skeleton's strange armor lay in the snow, where he'd fallen.

"C- Come on. W- We n- need to keep m- moving."

The human was crying. It took Alphys a moment to realize it.

"H- Hey, c- come on." She grabbed at the human's wrist with her claw. The child flinched away. "Th- There w- wasn't any other ch- choice! H- He w- wouldn't have j- just let us go!"

The human shook their head.

"Y- You can s- stay here a- and die, o- or you can l- let me try to save you."

The human shook their head again, shying away from Alphys.

The former royal scientist felt her anger coming back. How ungrateful could this human get? She'd just KILLED again, to save them! Couldn't they see what that did to her? Maybe she should MAKE them-

Alphys flinched. No, not again. She couldn't keep thinking of hurting her friends, hurting everybody… No.

She picked up the crying human as Papyrus had, facing little resistance besides a shiver. The human was far bigger in her arms and she struggled to do so, but she managed. The human began crying into her shoulder as they trotted onwards.

Alphys had sins to atone for, and ruining this child's innocence was just another for the list.

-RFYM-

Sans walked out of the kitchen and went straight to the front door, locking it. He turned back to the old living room.

It wasn't until then that he noticed the house was empty - devoid of all life but himself.

-RFYM-

Undyne worked her people tirelessly, sending them on to the next house the moment they'd completed the previous.

It wasn't until they went to the skeleton brothers' old house that one of the guard dogs got a scent, and footprints to the scent. The group of guards dropped checking the other houses and followed it all the way to the bridge to Waterfall.

What Undyne found left her SOUL in her boots. He had never been meant for combat. She just hadn't left him with the king so he couldn't talk the king out of it, weird pacifist that he was. She should have left him at the lab, to do Sans' job, maybe.

But instead, she'd… He'd…

"Papyrus… I'm going to FIND whoever did this! And I'm gonna KILL them!"

-RFYM-

Asgore sat alone on the throne, fidgeting uncomfortably. Somewhere Undyne was out there, hunting down the last human to bring him their SOUL. When they broke the barrier, he had no doubt that peace with the humans on the surface would be impossible.

He didn't want more war. He was tired. And yet, his people marched onwards.

In truth, the humans on the surface might actually agree to peace. After his announcements several months ago, of his adopted human's betrayal, would the monsters accept peace?

… No. They would not.

And so, Asgore was left in a terrible position.

Listless, he rose from the throne and walked toward his home. It was a long journey, taking him through the golden hall, across a skyway with a view of his great civilization, then finally up a staircase into the living areas. On the dining room table rested a much-used audio tape player.

He pressed the play button.

"Dreemurr… This is Toriel."

-RFYM-

Sans tore through his room, pulling drawers out in his haste. He'd had five phones from the prank with the speakers and that one cave in Waterfall. Five. Two he'd given to Toriel, one he still carried. All five had sequential phone numbers. If he could find the other two, he could figure out which number was Alphys' and-

Two plastic bricks tumbled out of the next drawer as it fell off its rails onto the floor. He snatched them up.

They were dead. No power.

Stepping through his room's door, (and through a conveniently placed shortcut he conveniently put there,) he walked over to his desk in the lab. His phone's charger was sitting right where he left it, but he only had one.

… This would take a while.

-RFYM-


	3. Chapter 3 : DETERMINATION

Chapter 3 : DETERMINATION.

-RFYM-

Alphys and the human made their way through the early parts of Waterfall without significant incident. In fact, the two hadn't had to kill anyone since the skeleton. Whenever a monster stepped forward to fight them, the human would find a way to "talk" them down. (Oddly, they did so without ever speaking.) It was as if the child utterly refused to harm anyone else.

This left Alphys feeling even more sick with herself. She'd killed a monster atop this adorable, loving creature. Could she get any more vile?

As they went, at one point, the human stepped through a waterfall and found an old tutu. They'd happily put the garment on, though Alphys couldn't tell if it was with respect to their gender, or to fly in the face of those rules. She decided to continue with the "they" pronoun.

Whenever Alphys tried to engage with the other monsters, the human held them back. The first few times she thought it was because the human was afraid of them being seen together, but as they visited a ghost named Napstablook and an old turtle monster named Gerson, she realized that it wasn't being seen together scaring the human.

The human was scared Alphys would hurt those monsters, too.

This suspicion was finally solidified when they ran into a young monster out exploring Waterfall, likely without his parents' permission.

"Yo! Who are you guys? Are you out trying to find Undyne too? I heard she came through here like two hours ago!"

Alphys was about to say that, no, they weren't looking for Undyne and that, no, they didn't feel like sharing their identities, when the human gave her a sharp look. Then the human turned back to the monster and nodded.

"Yo! I knew it! Undyne is so cool, leading the charge to hunt the last human and all. H- Hey, you look kinda like those images of humans. Weird, huh?"

Alphys tapped the human's shoulder, fear in her eyes. This kid was practically infatuated with Undyne. There was no way they could talk the young monster out of telling the guard where they (Alphys and the human) were!

"Yo, so, can I like… follow you? I mean, you seem to have a destination in mind, so you must know where you're going down here. I- I mean, don't tell my parents but I might be a little… lost."

The human shook their head, looking sad.

"Oh. O- Okay. Yo, that's fine. I'll just go hang out with Gerson, or something." He wandered off, slowly.

"W- What are you doing? H- He'll tell Undyne we came through here!"

The human glared at Alphys, a glint in their eye.

"W- We can't let him l- lead them to us!"

The human grabbed Alphys' claw and started dragging the former royal scientist away from the monster kid, toward the next maze of glowing grass.

As Alphys followed the human through the maze, her tension mounting, it took her a moment to realize what she'd been saying. The only ways to silence the monster kid was to kill him, or to take him as a hostage. She'd really just suggested that.

It was only because the human kept walking and wouldn't let her stop that Alphys didn't curl into a ball to cry, again.

-RFYM-

MK followed the two strangers by hiding in the grass. They were so weird. The yellow lizard monster looked exactly like that sciency lady that Undyne wanted captured, and the shorter one looked just like a human. How many monsters had skin that color? As many as MK had fingers, which was to say, none.

As the room fell into darkness again, the yellow lizard whimpering about something, MK ran across to hide up ahead of them. If Undyne wanted these people, and these people were in the Underground, Undyne would be here to fight them really soon!

MK found a bush of sea grass and hunkered down in it, waiting for the maybe-human and monster to get there. An echo flower bobbed lazily nearby, ready to whisper its message to whoever was willing to touch it.

The lights returned, then faded, then returned, then faded. MK snickered. Didn't they know they could just run across the darkened ground, ignoring the glowing grass entirely?

The light faded out again and MK heard splashing. They were close! He had to force himself to stay still, so as not to rustle the sea grass. First, the maybe-human came into sight, then the lizard monster. The human tapped the echo flower with a finger.

The echo flower echoed the distant sounds of splashing, followed by a yell. "Come on! Move FASTER! We can't let Alphys hide this human…"

Suddenly, Alphys and the human spun around. MK realized that splashing hadn't been from the echo flower.

"YOU!"

MK quivered. The voice in the flower, that shout, it really was Undyne! The armored fish warrior stepped closer.

"We found Papyrus."

Undyne took another step closer. MK could now see she was flanked by two of the guard dogs that always hung around Snowdin. It was kinda weird that Snowdin had so many guards, despite being a little village on the edge of the Underground.

"What did you do to him?"

Alphys flinched, backing up. The human looked up at Undyne with a strange expression. Pleading?

"What did you DO to him?"

Undyne summoned a spear. MK gaped at the glowing blue weapon. Magic was SO COOL!

"I was going to give you two a chance to redeem yourselves, to come in quietly."

Alphys - he assumed that was the lizard monster's name - covered her face with her claws. MK could see a small Toy Knife like someone would find in the dump in one of her claws. It was kinda dusty.

"SCREW THAT! WHY SHOULD I GIVE YOU THAT CHANCE WHEN I'M GOING TO KILL YOU BOTH ANYWAY?" Undyne tore off her helmet, throwing it to the ground. "YOU! Alphys! I see that dust on your claws! I can SMELL your LOVE." She pointed her spear at the human. "And YOU! We need your SOUL, whether you like it OR NOT!"

Alphys hid behind the echo flower, pressed up against the wall. She'd stopped covering her face with her claws, but she still looked terrified. The human stood in front of the lizard monster, hands open, not resisting. Pleading.

MK couldn't even revel in the fact that it looked like Undyne's eye was glowing. His mind was a whirlwind. Undyne was just going to kill them outright. Why was Undyne going to just kill these two? Wasn't she the good guy? Didn't she just want to beat up and capture the bad guys? And what did the human ever do?

Before he was really thinking about it, MK was stepping out from behind the bush. The dog guards barked in alarm, but Undyne was too engaged in her speech already.

"You're going to stand and protect that murderer, human? FINE! YOU CAN DIE FIRST!" Undyne stepped forward, preparing to stab forward with her spear.

MK stood between Undyne and the human. "H- Hey! I thought you-"

She pushed the spear forward. Had she not seen him? Oh no! The spear was coming at his-

-RFYM-

The second phone beeped to life, finally reaching a sufficient charge to enable its tiny screen and processing unit. Sans immediately set to work thumbing through its menus to its settings, pulling up its number. He jotted the number down next to two others, then calculated the next one in the sequence after that.

That had to be either Tori's or Alphys'. He dialed, then waited.

… Ring… Ring… Ring… Ring… Ring…

… But nobody came.

Sans hung up, then tried the next phone number.

… Ring… Ring… Ring…

"Hey, I didn't know pizza places would call you if you got too hungry!"

Sans blinked. "huh?"

"Yeah, I'd like a… Wait, you don't sound like the pizza guy."

"oh. uh, wrong number. jeez, what's that stupid song."

"Oh, c'mon, really? I was just about to go order a human-shaped pizza! Why'd you have to go and busy up my line?"

"oh it's the wrong number, the wrong number song. i'm very very sorry that i got it wrong?" Sans hoped those were the right lyrics.

"... Woah, dude, you are great at that song! Hey, I'm starting a band-"

Sans hung up. Maybe he gave Toriel the first and last phones in the series, or maybe the first two. Dangit, it was hard to remember after so long.

Sans tried dialing the number before his own.

… Ring… Ri-

Someone picked up. On the other end there was the sound of shouting. Suddenly, there was a splash and a fizzle, then the line went dead.

Damnit.

-RFYM-

MK pulled his face out of the muddy water, sputtering. Undyne had been about to stab him! UNDYNE had been about to STAB him!

Someone had pushed him out of the way. He scrambled to his feet and turned around.

Alphys stood between Undyne and the human, a spear sticking in through one side of her and out the other. Undyne was gaping, more at him than at Alphys. Maybe Undyne really hadn't realized he was there!

She turned to one of the dogs. "Get that KID out of here before he gets hurt!"

"The kid in yellow or the yellow kid in the coat? I only got glimpses of either of them, and I think you-"

"Doggo, not YOU! Greater Dog!" A dog in a huge suit of armor at the back barked. "Grab the kid!"

Someone else grabbed him first, someone closer. It was the human, hugging him. Water shifted as Alphys moved to stand between them and Undyne's guard squad.

Undyne glared at them. "Let the kid go, Alphys."

"I- I m- may have d- done some questionable things, b- but I n- never t- tried to stab a child!"

Undyne finally seemed to notice the spear sticking through the squat lizard. Her one good eye bulged. "How are you not DUST?!"

"L- LOVE. I- It decreases one's own capacity t- to be hurt, too."

Undyne snarled. "Fine! I'll just have to KILL YOU AGAIN!"

A phone began to ring. Monster Kid saw the glowing screen in the human's pocket and snagged the corner of the phone with his mouth. The human took the phone from him and answered.

Undyne summoned a spear. "DIE YOU WORTHLESS LIZARD!"

Alphys was forced to stumble backward to avoid Undyne's stab. The tip of the spear sticking out of the lizard monster's back came concerningly close to the human, so Monster Kid gave them a friendly safety tackle. The phone fizzled when it hit the water.

"U- Undyne, th- this human hasn't d- done anything to us! P- Please, l- let them go!"

"Their kind trapped us down here! Who cares whether ONE of them hurt us; THEY ALL DID!"

Monster Kid stood back up, letting the human grab their head to help them stand. They backed into the corner of the dead end, a little ways away from the battle. The human was shaking. MK decided he didn't like this new Undyne.

"I- I d- don't want to hurt a- any of you!" The lizard's glasses were fogged up. They reflected the dim crystal light of the cavern. "B- But I w- will!"

"That's it, then! HERE YOU'LL DIE!"

MK watched as Undyne charged the yellow lizard monster. Spears, dogs, axes, and knives began to fill the air. The human hugged MK, protecting him with their body. Alphys, too, brought magic to bear on this battle. There were far fewer of her lightning bolts than any of the other attacks, though.

"Yo… I can't believe I thought Undyne was cool…" MK muttered.

Alphys began taking increasingly more hits, her lighting bolts fading out of existence even faster. With her non-magic Toy Knife, she managed to catch Dogo in his weirdly-branded tank top. It cut through him like he wasn't even there, leaving a dust filled the gap in his disintegrating body. The other dogs' attacks got stronger.

"Why won't you JUST DIE?!" Undyne shouted. Alphys remained silent, even as a spear winged her off arm.

The human shook as they held MK. He noticed an ax had nicked their leg. "Y- Yo, you're hurt, human!"

Undyne paused her assault to look over. Her grin was maniacal. "HAH! The final human SOUL WILL be ours!"

While she spoke, Alphys jumped up behind her, digging the knife into the back of her unprotected neck.

MK gaped as Undyne fell to one knee. Just one good hit?!

Without Undyne, the ferocity of the others' attacks dropped to a mere trickle. Alphys dusted them with the Toy Knife before they could regroup, then rounded on the wavering Undyne.

"J- Just one hit… I'm already…"

Alphys, coated in the dust of Snowdin's guards, stood before the fish warrior. Her glasses were fogged to the point of being opaque, but a liquid leaked out beneath them, leaving tracks through the dust on her scales. MK - terrified out of his mind - still somehow realized they were tears.

Alphys' voice wavered. "U- Undyne… I- I didn't want… I n- never wanted to-"

"SAVE IT-" Undyne's bellow bit off with a wet cough. A puff of dust filled the air between them. "P- Papyrus… Asgore… J- Just like that, I've… failed…"

Alphys looked away. As her clouded gaze swept over Monster Kid's terrified face, she flinched.

"No…"

MK watched in awe as Undyne forced herself back to her feet. Or, was it terror? He couldn't keep track anymore.

"My body… it feels like it's splitting apart. Like at any instant I'll scatter into a million pieces."

Alphys looked back at Undyne in shock.

"But deep inside my SOUL, there's a burning feeling I can't describe. A burning feeling that WON'T let me die!"

Alphys' expression turned to one of horror. "B- B- But n- no th- that's i- impossible! I- I killed them ALL! The v- volume of dust matched! A- And the remaining DETERMINATION was s- stored i- in-"

"So you DID kill them!" MK watched in some mix of horror, hope, and utter confusion as Undyne's armor began to melt. "I've known all this time, but now you've out and SAID it, MURDERER!"

MK felt the human beginning to fall over on top of him. There was a lot of red liquid on their leg, and the ground. Was that bad?

"You thought this was over? NNNNGAH! In the name of all the hopes and dreams you've silenced, I, UNDYNE, will STRIKE YOU DOWN!"

Undyne began to glow, the portions of armor that had melted off floating into the air. There was a blinding flash of light, then Undyne stood before them as strong as ever, her HP entirely restored.

"You're gonna have to try a little harder than THAT!"

-RFYM-

Sans flicked through the camera feeds. He'd promised Toriel. He'd promised Toriel to protect the next human that came, then he'd gone and dumped Alphys on her doorstep. It was the only thing he could think to do, but now he owed her that promise. He owed Tori.

He'd checked all of Snowdin and was halfway through Waterfall. Nothing yet. Had he missed them? Or had Undyne or some other monster already gotten them both? Was that cooler in the corner of the shot really empty? No, that cooler was empty, this camera has a good shot of it. Was that a pile of dust? No, that's just a tablecloth.

The view flicked to one of the glowing grass mazes. This one was dark; nobody had passed through for at least a little while. He flicked a few more feeds forward.

THERE! Undyne pointed a spear at Alphys, shouting something. His feed didn't have audio, but Sans didn't need it. He just had to step through a-

He froze. In the edge of the shot, he saw the human collapse on top of some armless monster kid. They were pale, and their leg looked covered in blood.

"oh no. don't give up now, kid. hell, i just met ya'." Sans stepped through his shortcut, onto the ground next to the young monster. "you can't skip out on this already."

The kid monster was frantic. "H- Hey! Human! Are you-"

-RFYM-

Sans' tripped over the doorframe as he strode into the room. He picked himself up, wondering what had thrown off his… balance…

Memories of another strange moment came back. He'd found a stack of notes he'd left himself lying in his-

Sans walked back out of his room. The shortcut took him to his basement mini-lab, with… well, that old machine. He tore open the drawer that contained his photo album.

All his old notes on the flower were still there. So too was the album. There was nothing new.

He'd been caught off guard, then. In that case, the phones probably hadn't been the right way to locate Alphys and the human. Option two: The camera network.

Sans stepped through another shortcut and sat down in the rolling chair, in front of the big screen connected to cameras all over the Underground.

Really, it would have been so much more effective if he could have targeted someone and had it just follow them across all cameras. Sadly, he'd never bothered doing that. Maybe another royal scientist might've. Instead, Sans began carefully flicking through the cameras one by one.

-RFYM-

The human glared at Alphys, a glint in their eye.

"W- We can't let him l- lead-"

To Alphys' surprise, the human suddenly burst into tears. She jumped, looking around in case the young monster was still in earshot.

"Wh- What's wrong?"

The human shook their head vehemently, grabbing Alphys' claw and dragging her in the direction the monster kid had gone.

"H- Hey! Th- That's back toward U- Undyne and the guard!"

The human froze, looking torn. Then they grabbed Alphys' claws and dragged her toward the next glowing grass maze.

Utterly bewildered, Alphys followed their lead. The human had a clear idea of which paths to take, pausing only briefly at each fork. Somehow, it was like the human already knew the maze route!

-RFYM-

MK struggled to keep up with the maybe-human and the yellow lizard, even though he ignored the glowing grass path and ran through the dark. The kid was going fast, seeming able to just know when a path leads to a dead end. So weird!

In the end, he only barely beat them to the end of the maze. "Yo!... Where are you headed so fast?"

The maybe-human stopped abruptly upon seeing him ahead in the pool of water, then looked around frantically. They spotted a dark hole in the wall and darted into it, yellow lizard in tow.

He walked over and looked into the hole. "Y- Yo! Why are you run-"

An armored gauntlet grabbed the back of his neck, dragging him back. Suddenly, he found himself face to face WITH UNDYNE! YESSS! SO COOL!

"Did they come this way?!"

"U- Undyne, y- you're the coolest!" MK stammered.

Undyne dropped him into the water, ducking into the hole. Maybe a half dozen dogs in armor of various forms followed her in. MK sat dazed. Undyne had picked him up! SO AWESOME!

"Hoist me up this ledge, then HOLD THAT BRIDGE! I'm going to head them off! AND TAKE OFF THEIR HEADS!"

A dog barked to Undyne's orders. MK went through the hole himself, then slipped past the gaggle of guards busy trying to lift Undyne up onto a higher path. Maybe if he hid further ahead, he could watch Undyne fight!

-RFYM-

"H- Hey!" With the claw not dragging her onwards in a child's trembling grip, Alphys tugged on the human's sleeve. "Th- That monster kid is f- following us again."

"Yo!" The monster kid ran halfway across the bridge. "Are you… like… running from Undyne?"

The human tugged on Alphys' arm, trying to get her to advance. Reluctantly, she followed.

"Yo! Don't run! I'm just curious!"

Alphys slowed, looking back again. A group of dog guards advanced onto the bridge behind the monster kid.

She shook her head. "S- Sorry! W- We have to go!"

"W- Wait up!" The kid began running on the bridge again. "I want to see what happens when Undyne-"

His foot caught on a spot where the bridge dipped to cross a pillar of stone. The young, armless monster tripped, rolling off the small platform, barely getting a hold of the edge with his teeth.

"H- Hef! Hf mh!"

Alphys spun around as the human reversed direction, charging back to the imperiled youngling. The dogs on the far side of the bridge advanced. "H- Human! Th- They're g- getting closer-" Alphys warned.

She watched the human grab onto the monster kid, hauling him up and away from the drop at great risk of unbalancing themselves. Even at that distance, though, she could see the adoration the kid had just developed for the human.

The monster kid turned to the dogs. "Y- Yo! I- If you want to hurt this human, y- you'll have to go through me!"

The dogs looked amongst themselves, confused. The human ran back to Alphys.

"Uh, S- Shouldn't we-"

The human grabbed Alphys' hand and tugged, suddenly even more urgent than before. Alphys looked at the disorderly dogs, then understood. "Wh- Where's Undyne?"

The human tugged once more, then took off running. Alphys struggled to keep pace.

-RFYM-

"Seven."

Undyne's cold word stopped Alphys and the human in their dusty, sick tracks. Good.

"Seven human SOULs and a monster can become a God." She didn't sugar coat it with the old "Asgore will become a God." If she was honest with herself, which she always was, it was more likely that she'd be the one becoming a God. Asgore didn't have it in him, even with Papyrus' help...

Oh, Papyrus… Why him? Why HIM?!

"Six." Repeating herself sounded a little bland, so she changed it up. Rather than, "six is how many…" she said, "That's how many we have collected thus far."

She looked down on the two criminals, who stared up at her in clear fear. Good.

"Understand? Through that seventh and final SOUL, this world will be transformed."

Undyne considered continuing the ceremonial speech but decided just to cut it early. Nobody else was around to hear it.

"I was going to give you two a chance to redeem yourselves, to come in quietly."

The human flinched. Odd, she hadn't even delivered her line yet.

"SCREW THAT! WHY SHOULD I GIVE YOU THAT CHANCE WHEN I'M GOING TO KILL YOU BOTH ANYWAY?" Undyne tore off her helmet, throwing it off a cliff some direction. It would probably never be found again, but that was hardly her concern.

The yellow lizard monster whimpered something. Undyne didn't catch it.

"Papyrus. Say what you want about him. He's weird, he's naïve, he's self-absorbed…" She was silent for a moment, reminiscent. "... But now he's gone."

The human began to cry. Fool.

"What did you do to him?"

Alphys flinched, walking backward. Undyne snarled. Maybe if she was intimidating enough, she'd get that murderer to walk herself over a ledge.

"What did you DO to him?"

The two of them looked to be having a little emotional moment, both crying into each others' shoulders. Good. They should know it's the end of the line.

"Prepare however you want. But when you take one more step forward…" Undyne almost felt the glint in her good eye. "I will kill you."

-RFYM-

Sans flicked through the cameras. He was almost through Waterfall now, and he still hadn't seen any sign of either the lizard or the human.

He pressed the-

He pressed the-

He pressed the-

He pressed the-

He pressed the button for the next feed, then blinked in surprise. It showed a half dozen dogs sleeping next to a bridge, a bridge that was being guarded by a young monster kid. Sans had the distinct impression he'd already seen this several times, but he thought for sure he'd remember it if he had…

Suddenly, all his senses went on high alert. That flower was the thing with the RESET powers. If it was RESETting so much, it must be really intent on doing something. As past Sanses had taught him (well, told,) anything the flower was intent on doing was bad news.

Sans felt his eye flare. He flicked to the feed beyond the bridge.

-RFYM-

Alphys watched in astonishment as the suddenly DETERMINED face of the human crumbled. Still, the small child pulled the Toy Knife from Alphys' hand and tossed it over the edge of the cliff, to land with Undyne's helmet.

The human stepped forward, facing Undyne head on.

"That's it, then! No more running away!" Undyne jumped off the ridge, descending spear-first. "HERE I COME!"

-RFYM-

Alphys watched in astonishment as the suddenly DETERMINED face of the human crumbled into abject despair. Their tiny hand slipped from Alphys' claw, leaving the Toy Knife in her grip.

Suddenly, a yellow flower bloomed at their feet, its center a smiling face looking up at the human. Alphys jumped.

"See? Like I said last time, it's not so bad. And trust me, when you have all the LOVE she does? **It's just that much sweeter.** "

As suddenly as the flower appeared, it disappeared into the dirt. A choked sob escaped the human's throat.

Undyne glared down at them. "What are you doing down there? Are you going to fight me or not?!"

Alphys looked at the Toy Knife in her claws. The human hadn't torn it away. Should she defend them again? Could she kill again?

… The question didn't even deserve asking. She was LV 9. Of course she could kill again.

Unconfidently, uncertainty, perhaps even with a small amount of sickness thinking about what she would have to do, Alphys stepped forward.

"That's it, then! No more running away!" Undyne jumped off the ridge, descending spear-first. "HERE I COME!"

-RFYM-

Alphys watched in astonishment as the suddenly DETERMINED face of the human morphed into a tiny mask of anger. They reached out, tearing the knife from Alphys' claws. It tumbled off the cliff side into the darkness below.

Suddenly, a yellow flower bloomed at their feet, its center a face frowning condescendingly at the human. Alphys jumped.

"Hey, buddy, that was a LOAD, not a RESET. Aren't you going to go back to the beginning? Take my advice?"

The human shook their head vehemently.

"Alphys beat that walking sushi into a pulp, then you LOADed! Why else would you do that? Or… **did you just want to see Alphys cut Undyne to goop and dust one more…** "

Alphys covered her mouth in shock. This flower sounded almost like he relished killing! And it was a golden flower. It… it couldn't be the flower from the DETERMINATION experiments, could it?

"Wait. Why'd you take Alphys' knife? LOVE doesn't help her overall ineptitude without a physical weapon."

The human shook their head again, this time stomping their foot.

Undyne, up on the ridge line, grew impatient. "Fine! If you're too busy having a conversation, I'll come to you! No more running!" She jumped off the ridge, descending spear-first. "HERE I COME!"

-RFYM-

Alphys watched as the suddenly DETERMINED human reached out and grabbed the Toy Knife in her claws. Their hands shifted, moving past the knife at the last moment to grab her wrist.

"Wh- Wha-"

The human tugged, breaking into a run and dragging Alphys forward, toward Undyne.

"Eager, are you? Good! No more running away!" Undyne jumped off the ridge, descending spear-first. "HERE I COME!"

Undyne landed in a heap behind them as the two of them ran past.

"HEY! I SAID NO RUNNING!"

Ahead on the path, a flower bloomed. Alphys barely had time to notice it had a face before they were running past it too. "You've tried this twice now. **What do you hope to accomplish this way?** " it growled, before disappearing back into the ground.

An armored boot landed where the flower had just been as Undyne gave chase. "Get BACK here you little PUNKS!"

The human slowed as they passed over an underground river, then slammed into Alphys' side. Alphys lost her balance, tumbling over the side with the human in tow.

After a moment of terrifying freefall, the two of them slammed down onto a floating block of ice. It bobbed unsteadily, nearly pitching over. It held, though.

"HAH! You think you can escape over WATER?!" Undyne jumped after them. The next block of ice was more than fifteen seconds behind them, whereas Undyne jumped about ten. The fish warrior landed in the river with the gurgle of rushing water filling her suit of armor. She sank out of sight immediately.

"W- Well…" Alphys muttered, "A- At l- least she c- can breathe underwater."

The human sighed with relief, sitting up on the block of ice. Alphys followed suit. The young child gave a few hysterical hiccups - some strange mix between sobbing and laughter - then started to doze off. When they fell asleep, their head dropped into Alphys' lap.

"O- Oh. W- Well, goodnight!"

Alphys looked up. The ice cube was still floating lazily downriver. If she remembered the CORE's design correctly, a mechanical claw would pick them out of the water and drop them on a conveyor headed straight to the CORE's burning heart.

Then they might have a problem. But for now, they were safe.

-RFYM-

Undyne splashed down in the water, feeling her suit of armor filling with the freezing liquid direct from Snowdin. She sank like a rock, despite her best attempts to swim upwards.

Damnit! She'd have to ditch the armor! Standing on the bottom of the river, she tore off one gauntlet, then the other. She went for the clasps of the armored skirt - arguably the hardest part - but found them hard to adjust when she was hyperventilating. Wait, no, her gills were facing the wrong way.

She spun around, relieved at the sudden rush of water over the membranes in her neck. Her momentary relief ended, though, when a floating block of ice slammed into her face.

-RFYM-

Sans flicked to the feed beyond the bridge. The whistling pass and the cave below the ridge line were as silent as ever. He flicked forward again, to the long hallway beyond the cave, leading to Hotland. Again, nothing.

Again he cursed himself for not installing some kind of automated search algorithm in the cameras. Then maybe he'd have stood a chance, searching the entire Underground for two fugitives he was trying to protect.

Skull in one hand, possibly dozing off a little, he flicked to the next feed.

He decided maybe to try the cell phones again. Since all the numbers were sequential, he…

He jerked awake, nearly hitting himself. He wasn't a fugitive, he was the royal scientist! If he called Undyne, he could ask her where she thought the fugitives were, then search that area!

Sans fumbled his phone out of his hoodie pocket, selecting Undyne's speed dial and calling.

…

It didn't even ring. The line was just dead.

Sans shrugged. Maybe Undyne's phone had gotten stepped on or speared. He knew one other person that always, ALWAYS answered the phone.

Sans dialed Papyrus.

… Ring… Ring… Ring… Ring… Ring…

… But nobody came.

He shook his head. That couldn't be right. Hadn't Undyne herself once said Papyrus always answered within the first two rings? He redialed.

… Ring… Ring… Ring… Ring… Ring…

… But nobody came.

A slight panic starting to settle into his bones, Sans dialed a third time.

… Ring… Ring… Ring… Ring… Ring…

… But nobody came.

Where the HELL was his brother?!

-RFYM-


	4. Chapter 4 : Timeline Shenanigans

Chapter 4 : Timeline Shenanigans

-RFYM-

Alphys didn't get much rest as the block of ice she shared with the human floated downstream.

For the first thing, it was cold, and it continually threatened to tip over into the water, taking the two of them with it. For another - and Alphys couldn't believe she hadn't thought to mention this to the human - Undyne WAS A FISH MONSTER. Here on the water, they were sitting ducks!

The human slept soundly in Alphys' lap, clearly exhausted. Alphys didn't blame them. They had done the impossible: evading Undyne and getting, not one, but TWO people past Snowdin's, Waterfall's, and (by way of river) Hotland's guard contingents-

The ice bobbed suddenly. Alphys flinched, worried Undyne had caught up. After a moment, her analytical brain caught up. It had just been a change in the current - nothing to worry about.

Alphys shook her head. What troubled her the most was how the human had done it. The human hadn't hurt anybody! Their peaceful nature had worked perfectly on everyone but that skeleton.

She… She hadn't even known the skeleton's name.

Alphys looked at the human's sleeping face. How could someone that innocent look so-

The ice jumped again, the sound of water rushing increasing as the current grew still faster.

"H- Hey, human! I th- think s- something's happening!"

The human shifted, blinking blearily. Alphys looked ahead, trying to make out anything in the darkness. Suddenly, a wire mesh appeared out of the water, sloping upwards.

"Uh o-"

The ice slid up the slope of the mesh, out of the water and onto the embankment, where it ran onto a conveyor.

Alphys gaped at the setup. Someone had replaced the mechanical claw with that mesh slide! That was so… lazy! Slightly efficient, but incredibly lazy! And- what if something not-ice came downriver?! It'd get taken straight to the CORE and…

Well, actually, the CORE wouldn't have a problem melting just about anything into lava. That was actually their problem now, Alphys thought, as the rock embankment sloped away to leave them on the conveyor, traveling precariously toward the massive machine.

The human stared at the massive generator and surrounding lava in awe. Their eyes glinted from all the light reflecting at the odd angle.

"Y- Yeah. C- Cool, r- right?" Alphys stammered.

The human nodded, then looked ahead. The ice cube approached an open door in the CORE.

"W- When we get in there, we need to j- jump off at the f- first opportunity! Th- This ice could get d- dropped off into the C- CORE anywhere."

The human nodded as the ice cube passed through the door.

-RFYM-

Undyne slammed her fist onto the lab's door. It made a wet splat as it collided with the metal.

She was furious. The water had been freezing, and ditching her armor to climb out hadn't helped her mood either. The big shiner where other monsters had a nose was just icing on the GOD DAMN cake today.

"SANS! OPEN THIS DAMN DOOR!"

She hit the door again, leaving another fist-shaped damp spot. Even after walking halfway across Hotland, she was still DRIPPING WET. She may be a fish, but she wasn't a damn sponge! Why the HELL did water stick so well?

The door slid open. A skeletal hand grabbed the hem of her tank top, pulling her through the door before she'd even registered its opening.

"HEY! What do you think you're DOING?!"

Sans' eye sockets widened. He dropped Undyne onto the floor, where she made another loud, wet splat. Damn it. She was never going to live this down, was she?

As she looked at Sans from the floor, though, she noticed something else in his expression. It was something she'd never seen in his eyes before. Panic.

"undyne. my bro's not answering his phone. you seen him lately?"

He tried to cover over his worry with his laid-back schtick, keeping his voice modulated and calm. It wasn't working. Undyne's face collapsed, though, and she could see the reciprocal increase in panic in his eyes.

"you have? where? i just need to-"

"The human killed him, Sans."

Sans froze, eye sockets as wide and round as was possible for his skull.

"The human or Alphys, one of the two. We found his dust just outside Snowdin."

Undyne let her head fall back. Her gaze drifted to the ceiling.

"God, I'm sorry Sans. You have no idea how much I want this day to be-"

She looked up when she heard footsteps. The lab door was already closing behind him.

"HEY! Wait!" Undyne shot to her feet and slammed a wet hand down on the door-open button. It slid open again, letting in a blast of Hotlands' hot air.

Sans was gone.

"NGAH! Sans! I need you to check your cameras and do your damn JOB! Don't pull that disappearing trick again!"

All that answered was the bubbling of lava.

Undyne cursed some salty words that, had anyone been around to hear them, would definitely have Asgore removing her as head of the royal guard.

-RFYM-

Alphys and the human stopped for a breather on the platform. They almost hadn't made it off the ice cube in time.

Their block of ice got diverted suddenly from the main conveyor, heading down a very short distance to a precipitous drop straight into the CORE. They had been fortunate in that, just beyond the end of the conveyor, a convenient railing-less catwalk ended. With a terrifying leap, both of them had made it to safe, solid ground.

"A- Alright. I- If the CORE is a- anything like it used to be, th- there should be a puzzle around h- here that'll unlock the e- elevator t- to Asgore's castle."

The human set off, looking determined.

"W- Wait! W- We can't g- go there yet. W- We have to backtrack!"

They glanced back, curious.

"W- Well, r- remember when Sans asked a- and s- said… he s- said the B- Barrier was t- too strong f- for your S- SOUL alone?"

They nodded. It had only been a few hours ago, after all.

"I n- need to g- get into my lab a- and retrieve the s- solution. DETERMINATION."

The human shrugged. It was a clear question: which way? Or maybe: what do I do?

"Uhh… j- just f- follow me. They c- can't have changed the l- layout too m- much, r- right? O- Only been a year…"

Alphys set off, the human following behind. There had to be an elevator around somewhere that led to the lab. Or, better yet, one that led to the True Lab below it.

-RFYM-

Sans knocked on the Ruins' door. His brother's cape hung loosely around his spine, shifting in the wind.

Were anyone else around, they'd have seen him crying into the dust on the scarf. Alone as he was, he could tell himself that it was okay. He wasn't crying. Not at all.

Nobody responded to his knock. He summoned a bone, taking it in his hand and smashing it on the door. The crack was loud enough to wake the dead.

The door held. Nobody came.

Sans opened his phone, dialing the number that a feeling told him was Toriel's.

… Ring.

… Ring.

… Ring.

… Ring.

… Ring.

A spider crawled out from under the door, shivering in the cold of Snowdin's air. Sans knelt and cupped his hands on either side, sheltering it from the wind. He dropped his phone, which continued to ring uselessly.

The spider came fully out from under the door, dragging behind itself a dust-covered pair of glasses.

Sans remembered her voice through the door, what must have been months ago. " _The patient said, 'Doctor, will I be able to read after wearing glasses?' The doctor said, 'Of course!' The patient said, 'Oh thank goodness! I have been illiterate for so long!'"_

Sans felt his left eye socket burning.

-RFYM-

Alphys and the human walked down a long corridor. Her trained eye could see the rows upon rows of laser defenses that protected the core. All of them were, thankfully, turned off. Something to thank Sans for later.

After passing a few dozen rows, the human tapped on Alphys' arm, then pointed at the lasers.

"Oh. D- Don't worry about those. I'm s- sure Sans has them completely disabl-"

As if to spite her words, the first laser emitter they passed suddenly activated. Then the second. Then the third. Each laser cast an orange beam across the hallway, and each laser was getting closer.

"O- Oh n- no!" Alphys moaned, "C- Come on. K- Keep moving! If you're m- moving in an orange attack, it can't hurt you!"

The human froze, staring in shock at the reactivating-

-RFYM-

Sans froze, one foot in the lab, one foot in the Snowdin forest, his brother's dusty scarf fluttering around his neck from the atmospheric irregularities. Time has just glitched again. The lab… was Undyne dead? That damn flower…

He pulled his leg out of the shortcut, then took a few steps to the side into a shortcut to a higher level of Hotland. From here the lab looked fine, but that didn't tell him anything about what was inside.

He considered his options. Since going to the lab had resulted in that time glitch, the flower must be there. Hence, his hesitation probably killed Undyne, if she wasn't dead already.

Eventually, he decided the only viable option was to figure out what the flower was up to, without killing it. But to do that, he had to be unpredictable.

What would be the strangest way to appear in the lab…

-RFYM-

Undyne punched buttons on the console randomly, with increasing fervor. One of them had made the screen change to a different camera feed, if she could just find-

"oh. heya. didn't see you there." a lazy voice said from on top of the screen of the information console.

She let her gaze drift upwards, glaring at Sans as he lazily lay on the screen until she noticed what was around his neck. The angry, accusatory questions on how to operate the console died on her lips.

He seemed aware enough to do his job on his own, at least. Sans rolled off the screen, bouncing off the information console and bumping her out of the way. With a few tiny button presses she couldn't even follow, the camera feed jumped through locations in the lab beneath the main lab, then through the CORE. The feed switching finally halted on two short figures running down a CORE corridor as fast as they could.

Alphys and the human! "There! Sans, can we stop them? Lasers or something?"

Sans' hand flinched toward a switch, then paused.

Undyne didn't have the patience for this "WELL?!"

The skeleton rubbed his skull, watching the two figures sprint down the corridor. He hit himself a couple times, then flipped the switch he had been reaching for. Orange lasers sprung up behind Alphys and the human, filling the corridor and doing absolutely nothing to impede their progress.

"Sans! That did NOTHING!" Undyne shouted. "Are there any more of those AHEAD of them?"

Sans shook his head, flipping the camera feed to the next room. The two running figures came upon an elevator, slapped the buttons, then disappeared inside.

"NGGGGGAAAAAAAAAH! You LET them get aw-"

"undyne, look."

Sans' quiet words let Undyne control her rage for a moment. She followed his finger, looking at an information display that popped up in the corner of the screen. It was a map of the Hotland area of the Underground. A blinking dot followed a line toward the lab.

"they're coming here."

"Can you disable the elevator once they get here?" Undyne asked.

The skeleton shrugged. "sure. i mean, literally just a switch flip away."

Undyne started for the door. "Do that. They're not getting away this time, even if I have to fight in a damn OVEN!"

-RFYM-

Alphys wiped her brow, breathing heavily from the sudden run. "W- Whew. Y- You r- really s- saved us from those l- lasers there."

The human stared at the elevator door, not giving any sign they'd heard Alphys.

"Hey, y- you okay? D- Don't w- worry, m- my l- lab should b- be right out here after-"

"the elevator arrives. yup."

Alphys jumped in surprise, bonking her snout on the front of the elevator. The human spun around too, backing against a front corner.

"heya. you've been busy."

Alphys stared at the bright red scarf tied around Sans' neck. The scarf that utterly clashed with his ever-present sweatshirt.

The bright red scarf covered in dust.

"look, i know it was sudden, me showin' up in a movin' elevator, but we don't have time for freaking out. undyne is outside. take my hand, both of you. i know a shortcut."

Shaking nigh uncontrollably, Alphys grasped his skeletal fingers with her claws.

-RFYM-

Undyne leaned on a spear, heaving in the baking heat. The water had mostly evaporated off her, but it wasn't all gone yet.

The elevator dinged, and the doors opened. The car was empty.

"DAMN IT, SANS!"

-RFYM-

Sweat speckled Sans' brow, which was a weird look for a skeleton, Alphys thought. Another weird look for a skeleton was wearing a dead skeleton's clothing while helping their killer.

Clearly whatever Sans thought he knew, he didn't.

"okay, alphys, where did you hide the DETERMINATION? that is your plan, isn't it?"

Alphys blinked. She'd entirely lost track of where they were. Quickly, she examined her surroundings. They were in dark tile hallway with a few glowing computer monitors.

She was back in the True Lab.

"O- Okay, th- the r- rest of the DETERMINATION s- should be i- in the DT Extractor."

Sans stared at her. "you just left it there?!"

"N- Nobody e- else knew how t- to u- use it!" Alphys said, defensively, "A- And I th- thought n- nobody w- would f- find this l- lab once I k- killed the elevator."

The human looked back and forth between them in confusion, clearly lost. Sans shook his head and snorted. "whatever. let's just get this human out of the underground already."

They started walking. The human stared at the scarf as it swung a little in the still air. Eventually, seemingly out of curiosity, they tapped Sans on the elbow, then tugged on the scarf.

"it's nothin', kiddo."

The human's eyes narrowed. Alphys realized they wouldn't be satisfied with that answer. "H- Hey-"

The kid tugged harder on the scarf. Ever-present smile souring, Sans smacked their hand away, cutting a knuckle. "i said lay off!"

A metal groan echoed from far above, like a large piece of steel being bent in half. Alphys flinched, looking up. The ceiling was perfectly intact.

"that's undyne getting into the lab. guess i'm fired now." Sans shrugged, then resumed walking.

"S- Sans… I-" Alphys bit down on her tongue. If she started talking she might say something stupid, and she didn't want to fight Sans. She didn't want him to turn on her and the human.

"save it 'till…" Sans trailed off too. "just save it."

She was glad he didn't say, "until after the human is gone." They both knew she wasn't thinking that far ahead.

The human drifted to Alphys' side, looking small. Alphys went to pat the child but pulled away at the last moment. The kid didn't like it when Alphys killed; they surely wouldn't want her comfort after another monster lost his job over their safety.

"extractor's in here," Sans said. Alphys nodded, not even checking to confirm what he said. "... uhh, you remember how to get at that DETERMINATION?"

Alphys blinked, her eyes focusing on one of the many objects of her nightmares. The lifeless "eyesockets" of the machine stared back. It resembled a massive goat skull, with wires and tubes sticking out every which way. On the wall to one side, a computer screen blinked to life.

Forcing herself to ignore her twinges of past fear, Alphys bustled over to the computer screen. "D- Don't w- worry, I'll have i- it in a s- second or two…"

Alphys leaned into the screen, immersing herself in the interface rather than pay attention to her surroundings. She steadfastly ignored the shadows shifting in the corners of her vision. It was just the computer screen. That was it.

"this place?" Sans asked, apparently in response to some gesture the human made. "this is where alphys used to work, before movin' to the ruins. she was the bigshot royal scientist, but she didn't really…" He sighed. "y'know, i was gonna do a pun on her scales, but i'm really not feeling up to it. let's just get outta here."

Something wasn't right. The extractor was all booted up, but the container showed no DETERMINATION stored. "I- I d- don't g- get it. Th- the D- DETERMINATION isn't-"

Alphys noticed a damp squelching coming from the corridors they'd recently been traversing.

"wait, the DETERMINATION isn't there?!"

"Y- Yes! I- It's g- gone! I d- don't kn- know how something like that c- could've happened!"

Sans' smile actually drooped. "damn it. that must've been me stopping the flower last time, which means, this time, it…" He shook his head. "forget the DETERMINATION. undyne's almost here, and we can't let that human end up dead down here."

"S- So w- what do we d-"

Across the room, Undyne came barging in the doorway. "NO MORE RUNNING AWAY!"

"Sans!" Alphys squeaked.

"i- i can't-" Sans stood frozen in place, the white t-shirt under his hoodie glowing slightly green.

"Fuhuhuhu! When you're GREEN, you can't ESCAPE!" She tossed a spear at him by the shaft. He caught it. "So come on, face danger head on and FIGHT ME!"

"U- Undyne! S- Stop!" Alphys said, "W- We j- just want t-to g-get the human out of the U- Underground! D- Don't m- make me h- hurt you!"

The human curled up under the extractor's control screen. They were shaking.

Undyne remained focused on Sans. "I can't BELIEVE you, Sans. Why the HELL are you protecting the creatures that MURDERED your brother?!"

Alphys flinched. That skeleton in the scarf had been Sans' brother? A- And she'd…

"this is a lot more complicated than that, undyne. hell, i bet that flower is framing them just to force me to turn on them so that he can swoop in and-"

"I don't CARE whatever THEORIES you have! If you want to protect this human, I'LL KILL YOU TOO!" Undyne summoned spears from all sides of Sans. The skeleton went through quite a workout trying to deflect them.

"undyne, buddy, pal, you don't want to make me fight back. so don't."

Undyne glared at Sans. Alphys stepped up to Sans' side, putting up a strong face for the human.

"I'm…" Undyne took a deep breath. "I'm going to KILL ALL THREE OF YOU!"

Undyne's next attack was brutally fast, spears shooting in like arrows fired from bows. Sans managed to block all the ones coming his way. Alphys just moved around, or stood in place and took the hits. High LOVE helped with that.

"welp. don't say i didn't warn ya," Sans said, raising a hand toward the DT Extractor.

Undyne gaped as the "goat skull" shaped machine suddenly came to life, encased in a skin of bone. It rose slightly, the "snout" of the skull pointing directly at her.

"What the HELL-"

A beam of blinding light shot out, hiding Undyne from view. The wires and tubes running into the machine began to hum as if it was drawing an immense amount of power. The control screen flickered out.

Finally, it stopped. Where Undyne had been standing, a pile of wet dust settled. The human let out a whimper and covered their face with their sweater.

Sans walked over and extended his hand to the child. "c'mon, kiddo. let's go talk to-"

The human shook their head vehemently.

"look, what's done is done. we can't go back and erase the past. sometimes we just-"

-RFYM-

The kid tugged harder on the scarf. Ever-present smile souring, Sans took a swipe at the kid's hand, but they'd already let go. "i said…! uhh… just don't…"

Something wasn't right. Sans could feel it. They'd done this already, only one time, but already.

The kiddo grabbed his scarf again, this time pulling hard enough to stop him in his tracks. "hey! quit. it."

The human let go of the scarf, but they shook their head. Running back, they took Alphys' claw in their hand and kept going, pulling the lizard monster along.

"where are you going?!" Sans shouted after them.

… and why?

A metal groan echoed from far above, like a large piece of steel being bent in half. Sans closed his eyes and sighed as Alphys flinched. "undyne. guess i'm really fired now." Sans adjusted his brother's scarf around his neck, then made to follow Alphys and the human.

-RFYM-

Undyne was nearing the limit of her patience and her abilities. She couldn't believe it. Sans had pulled a disappearing act, and so had the fugitives. If she found them working together, it was GAME OVER for all three!

She hit the button to summon the elevator to the True Lab, but five seconds later she got annoyed and forced the door open with a spear.

The sound of the elevator ascending echoed up to her from maybe halfway up the shaft. She supposed that was good enough. Summoning another spear, she jumped down the shaft onto it.

… and through the ceiling of the car, landing in a heap on the floor. She'd have to talk to Sans about fixing… No, wait, she didn't have to talk to that traitor about anything!

She hit the elevator stop button, then the button for the True Lab floors. The car began to descend, slowly.

The moment the doors opened, Undyne ran out spear-first. Her feet were still making squelching noises, thanks to falling in the river while chasing the fugitives, but alerting her prey didn't matter. There were only two ways out of the True Lab, and she was seconds from having her eye on both.

Undyne turned a corner, ran into the next room, and spotted the doors of the elevator to Asgore's castle closing.

"HEY! STOP RUNNING AND FIGHT ME!"

She threw her only summoned spear. She couldn't see who was in the car, but it was aimed directly at one of the occupants. It got caught in the seam of the door, then broke in half and dispelled as the car moved away.

Undyne swore, saltily.

-RFYM-

Nobody in the elevator car breathed until the spear broke in half and dispelled. Nobody was injured, either. Alphys let out a long, shuddering sigh. The human whimpered. Sans didn't make any sound because he didn't need to breathe.

"W- What d- do we do now?" Alphys worried, "U- Undyne, She'll n- never l- let us near the D- DETERMINATION."

Sans shrugged. "i don't think that'll be a problem."

"W- What?!"

Alphys followed his gaze. He was staring squarely at the cowering human.

"W- What are you s- saying?!"

"that face… that's the face of someone who's lost any and all hope."

The human gave him a wary glance. Sans' smile grew.

"there wasn't any DETERMINATION, was there?"

"B- But S- Sans, we d- didn't GET to the-"

The human nodded. Sans nodded back.

"so, not that it isn't helpful, but how do you remember that? 'cause, way i figured, i was the only one who knew about all this timeline crap."

Alphys wasn't following any of this. "What are you t- talking about?!"

"what'd i do to get him to go back?"

The human flinched.

"aww, geez. that bad, huh?"

Unable to stay in the dark any longer, Alphys grabbed Sans' shoulder. "W- WHAT IS GOINg…" Realizing her volume, she trailed off. Quietly, she finished the end of the sentence. "...on?"

Sans grinned, his pupils focusing past the human and the wall of the elevator at something a thousand miles away only be could see. "a sociopathic genocidal flower probably just stole your leftover DETERMINATION. next he'll try to fight asgore for the six human SOULs, probably."

Alphys' eyes widened on the word flower. By the end of the statement, she fainted dead away.

-RFYM-

"man, alphys, when did you get so heavy?"

Sans dragged Alphys down the skyway, the human trying (and generally failing) to be helpful along the way. Eventually, they reached the end of that passage and turned into another, one covered in golden tile. When Sans turned to give the human a glance, they were giving him a searching gaze.

"wondering what the plan is?"

The kiddo nodded.

"welp, flower's probably fighting ol' fluffybuns already. we'll have to pop in, stop him, then keep stopping him until he goes all the way back: undoes everything that's happened in this timeline."

The human was still watching him. Sans set down Alphys to give them a look of his own.

"what? something in my tee-"

Sans cut himself off, spotting something moving behind the human. Golden and white. A spray of bones shattered the tile behind the three of them, causing the human to jump on Alphys in fright. After the dust settled, nothing moved.

Alphys, having been jumped on, woke up. "N- No I-"

She took in the hall, Sans, and the human huddled against her. She shot to her feet.

"D- Don't you d- dare hurt them!"

-RFYM-


	5. Chapter 5 : Misattribution Fallacy

Chapter 5 : Misattribution Fallacy

-RFYM-

Sans backed away from the angry lizard monster. "hey, that wasn't aimed at the kid, okay? just calm down."

Alphys shook her head hard, clearly still shaking off the effects of waking up.

"look, kid's fine. i'm fine. it's going _tibia_ okay. just _humerus_ me."

The human set a hand on Alphys' arm, a determined glint in their eye. Instantly, Alphys calmed down.

"see? we're all good. now let's go talk to asgore, explain the whole timeline issue, then get the human out of here."

Alphys didn't seem too okay with that idea. "W- Wait, y- you aren't suggesting-"

"That's exactly what he's-" a voice began to say from behind Sans, before the ground around it exploded in a hail of bones. " **HEY!** "

"you keep leaving the party, flower. it's makin' me kinda _bonely._ think you'd mind _stamen_ around for a bit?"

The flower appeared behind the human, a vine grabbing their ankle. He growled, "Trashbag, I'm trying to HELP you! **You've got the wrong-** "

The flower's complaint was cut off by a bone ramming through the floor at an angle, directly toward its face. It ducked out of the way, releasing the human, then popped up over Alphys' tail.

"Ms. Bipolar Lizard over here was the one who-"

"What is THAT?!" Alphys shouted, immediately before the human tackled her out of the way of a beam of light coming from a massive, floating skull. The flower once again ducked out of sight beneath the ruined floor.

"look, i know if you just came out and talked for a bit, we could get right to the _root_ of the problem. you know i know all about your timeline shenanigans, _flowey_."

The flower appeared between Sans and the Alphys/human cowering huddle. One of his topmost petals was singed. "I don't know what to tell you, Smiley Trashbag. This timeline isn't mine! Now, if you would just **listen to me** -"

Flowey ducked under the floor again to dodge a pile of clattering bones. Sans gave a grunt of effort as they disappeared.

"This really isn't working out. **From the top then!** "

Before Sans could put a bone through Flowey a wave of bullets appeared and shot across the room, tearing through both Alphys and the-

-RFYM-

Alphys felt the human's hand on her arm and calmed down. Sans wasn't lying. They were all fine. Everything was going to… be okay. Even if they had to use Asgore's SOUL to get the human out, that was still better than a war against the humans the monsters would have no chance of-

"S- Sans? Are you-"

He turned around, pulling his hands out of his pockets. Alphys thought she saw his hands glowing blue. "you know, chatting about our plans would be fun, but we already did that. we should go."

"A- Already d- did wha-"

"Trashbag, **listen to me this** -"

A bone shot out of the floor, catching a tiny golden flower between its stem and its bud. There was a snick as the flower separated from the stem, then a gentle pat as it hit the floor.

…

Nothing happened.

"uhh… isn't this the part where we go back?"

"W- Wait, i- in the elevator y- you said it was a flower th- that w- was trying to kill everyone."

"yup."

"A- And that flower-"

"yup."

"O- Oh. S- So d- did you just kill it?"

Alphys saw a wisp of blue flicker up Sans' scalp. She walked over to him, looking at his face.

His left eye was flashing and glowing.

He was crying.

"W- Wait… B- But it's d- dead!"

"yeah. and we're still here."

"I thought… i- isn't that what we want?"

Sans rubbed his eye sockets with his hands. The glow didn't go away. "no. no, it's not."

The human stood right behind them, leaning around Alphys to get a look at the flower.

"D- Don't we need to k- keep mov-"

Bones shot out of the ceiling and floor, pulverizing the flower bud. Alphys jumped back in shock, shoving the human accidentally.

"i'm such an _idiot_!"

"W- What? Why?"

"i thought when a timeline ended, that was the end. everyone stops and we all go back. but no: here we are! we're. still. here." He rubbed his face with his scarf. "a- and paps is… is…"

Sans grabbed the stem and uprooted it, pocketing the sad remnant of the plant, then making for the pillars on either side of the hall.

Alphys made to follow. "W- Wait! What about the h- human!"

"i don't really care, _tibia_ honest. go fight asgore, get yourselves killed. i…" His voice cracked. "i'm going to grillby's."

Sans walked past a pillar and his footsteps stopped.

The human clutched at Alphys' arm, a frightened but determined look in their eyes. The two of them set off for the end of the room, and whatever lay beyond.

-RFYM-

Asgore sat on his throne, his trident across his lap. A couple of people over the years had wondered whether it was a summoned weapon, but his magic was not nearly that focused. Rather, it was a family weapon. Technically it was summoned, and technically it was also physical. While he could create it at any time, it was the only one that could exist. Any previous copies would vanish.

Right now, he considered going to the CORE and tossing it in. He couldn't keep doing this. The first six, then all those monsters… Undyne had done admirably at attempting to rescue him from his own self-doubt, but…

Toriel had been so furious, so righteous in her "voice-mail." It was almost as if she had stormed across the Underground to shout it in his face, then returned to wherever she had hidden all these years.

It wasn't a pleasant memory, even almost a year removed.

He ran a claw against one of the prongs of the trident. It was polished to a pristine sheen, but he knew blood still coated it. It had met human flesh before, and if he let it, it would again. If he let himself go, the human would not stand a chance, nor would any friends they may have made along the way. Papyrus had once questioned fighting humans, perhaps he would stand with whatever human had fallen, in an attempt to stop the bloodshed. If Asgore let himself, he would strike down even such innocence as Papyrus'.

The king shoved his trident off his lap. It clattered down the steps before him until it fell into the bed of flowers, almost hidden by their golden petals.

He turned, ripping at his own throne with claws and fire magic. He did not deserve it. He did not deserve the title of King.

Toriel had been right. All along she had been right.

His choices may have given the people hope, but all it gave him was EXP and LOVE.

Breathing heavily and staring at his wrecked throne, it took Asgore a moment to hear the soft sound of plant stems breaking underfoot.

Multiple feet.

He turned. "Howdy! I'm sorry about the mess, I was…"

His happy explanation for the sad state of his throne was cut short by what he saw.

"D- Doctor Alphys. I… It has been some time. I was worried you had come to harm over the years that have passed. Would you like a cup of tea…? Er..."

There was someone else there too, hiding behind the battered looking yellow lizard monster. Someone short, wearing a striped, dust-stained sweater and most certainly not a monster, hid behind Alphys, using her as a shield.

"... I see. Hello, human."

The human hid a little further, but still watched him.

"I want so badly to offer you a cup of tea as well, but…" He sighed, glancing at his throne. "... You know how it is."

"A- Asgore, I'm g- going to g- get them out of here. Y- You know w- what that m- means."

The king nodded, then glanced at the field of flowers. "It's a beautiful day outside. Birds are singing, flowers are blooming… Perfect weather for a game of catch."

Alphys and the human said nothing.

"... Meet me in the next room when you are ready." Asgore turned his back, making for the door. He hoped they would strike at him then, end his pain without him noticing.

Sadly, they had too much honor for that.

He paused in the hallway before the door, waiting as the pair of footsteps caught up with him. "Do not worry if you are not ready. I am not ready either."

He entered, turning around three long strides in, for he already knew what lay behind him. The barrier thrummed with energy, keeping all monsterkind trapped away.

The power that could cross it was that of a human SOUL and a boss monster's. Any monster's would do, but that of a normal monster could not be retrieved unless it could be made to persist after death. The power that could break it was that of seven human SOULs, of which he had six hidden in the very room he stood in to face them.

The human and lizard monster entered. The young human - no more than a child - carried his trident. It dragged on the ground.

"Is there anything else either of you wish to accomplish in the Underground before you depart? I will give you time to set your affairs in order. We've waited hundreds of years - a few hours will not kill any of us."

Alphys and the child shared a look. The human handed Alphys the trident, which the lizard monster managed to lift with a struggle.

Once again Asgore considered simply summoning the trident. It would disappear from their grasp, his magic would increase threefold, and the battle would be decided before it began.

Even though he knew there would be no consequences to it - there were no cameras here, nobody was watching - he could not bring himself to do so. They deserved at least a chance. Perhaps with more friends behind them, they could succeed with ease.

Alphys stepped forward.

"Human. Alphys. It was nice to see you both."

He pressed a hidden button in the floor with his foot, which revealed the other six human SOULs. He wasn't going to use their power himself, oh no. Were he to die, he couldn't let the other monsters go on without knowing where they were.

He bowed his head, fire magic filling the air around his robes. "Goodbye."

-RFYM-

Alphys stood over the body of the king as it slowly turned to dust. Her burns were catching up with her but, for now, she was savoring the- NO! SHE WAS NOT SAVORING MURDER! NO. NO. NO!

"I… had hoped… you would win…" Asgore said.

The human was crying. Alphys patted their shoulder. Whatever ability they had to mess with time, it had come in incredibly useful in the battle. Numerous times the human had shoved Alphys away from lethal spots of fire magic.

"I cannot… take this anymore. This prison. The cost of… escape."

The king closed his eyes. Alphys bowed her head, her glasses fogging up. Tears. That was the proper response to death. She let them come.

"Take my… SOUL. Leave. I…"

His form dissolved entirely, sloughing off onto the ground. The trident embedded in his chest lost its balance, clattering to the ground. The king's SOUL shuddered in the air.

"H- Human, hurry! B- Before it-"

The glowing rainbow-colored spear split through the small glowing heart in a flash, shattering the tiny thing.

"YOU'RE not going ANYWHERE! EVER! AGAIN!"

Alphys whirled around, just in time for a serrated spear to catch her at an insane velocity. It grabbed her, pinning her to the wall next to the barrier by her shoulder.

The human stood before Undyne, alone.

And with extreme horror, Alphys realized the human SOUL containers Asgore had revealed were now empty. That and Undyne was glowing, the spear sticking out of Alphys was colored like a rainbow rather than Undyne's usual light blue, and that there was a lot of dust pooling around Alphys' chest and feet.

Then Alphys passed out, slumping onto the spear that was quickly draining all of her HP.

-RFYM-

"YOU," Undyne snarled at the human. "This is IT. Papyrus? Sans? Asgore? No more tricks, no more of your FRIEND over there! YOU and ME. Right now!"

Undyne glanced over. What little HP the lizard monster had remaining after facing king Asgore was almost drained away, feeding directly back into Undyne's own. While her enemy's friends grew weaker, she grew stronger.

Undyne pointed a shimmering, multicolored spear at the human, feeling that a half dozen others floated all around them, ready to turn the tiny human kid into a bloody pincushion. "You might have gotten Asgore, but he didn't use the six human SOULs. Now that he's gone, I'm next in line. So I DID."

The human fell back in fear, falling directly on Asgore's dust. That was sacrilege that could not go unpunished.

She scoffed. "Now that you've got no friends to save you, I'll show just how STRONG monsters can be!"

Undyne raised her spear. The human lifted the fallen king's trident from the dust, barely. Determination gleamed in their eyes.

The final battle began.

-RFYM-

Undyne felt the trident breach her summoned armor, raking across the scales on her stomach. She stumbled back, using a floating spear for support. It collapsed, leaving her to fall to the floor.

"I… I don't get it. How are you doing that? It's like you know what's coming next every time!"

The human looked battered and bruised too, but they were far from defeated. This was taking a toll on Undyne. Then again, she'd barely tapped into the power of the SOULs.

"Fine!" she spat, "You leave me no choice."

Undyne felt the subtle glowing of her summoned armor increasing in magnitude.

"If you're so determined to survive, I'll just have to see how much power I can pull from these SOULs."

She grinned malevolently, remembering that stuff "anime" she'd found when snooping through Alphys' laboratory before Sans had made it even more of a mess.

The floor receded and the quantity of summoned armor quintupled.

If the humans had mecha warrior princesses, she'd just have to be a MAGIC mecha warrior princess, to protect all monsterkind!

The human's arms shook holding the trident.

"Fuhuhuhuhu! You're gonna have to try a little harder than THAT!"

-RFYM-

Alphys came to groggily. She felt so tired, so weak, she-

Her magic sparked, faintly. She had one HP. One. HP.

A flash caught her foggy eyes' attention. Or, were those her foggy glasses? She was too tired to tell. She could just make out the human, fighting against some massive, glowing heroine straight out of the anime Alphys used to enjoy.

She struggled to her feet. The human was dodging Undyne's attacks admirably, but even with the trident, they weren't able to really attack her new form. She was too strong.

Alphys stumbled toward the fight. She was surprised she hadn't fallen down, or worse. With this small an amount of HP, she should have been dust. Then again, when had her LOVE ever let her give up like that?

"H- Hey!" she shouted, weakly.

Undyne turned to look at her. With great effort, the human swung the trident around and slashed across Undyne's ankle. The massive, magical warrior recoiled, cried out, then fell.

Alphys saw the massive, glowing, clawed hand descending toward her. Smelled the ozone of incredibly powerful magic. Felt a crushing weight.

Then felt nothing at all.

-RFYM-

LOVE Increased.

Undyne picked herself up, reforming her magical armor's damaged ankle and rounding on the human. With their annoying little lizard TRAITOR out of the way, the tiny little BRAT wouldn't stand a chance.

Undyne took a step toward the human. Then another. She descended on the human faster than she thought possible.

Then she realized that was because her magical armor was getting smaller.

"What?! The SOULs? What are they DOING?!"

Undyne stopped moving, glaring at the human. The shrinking continued. Undyne's armor was almost reduced to what it had been as her normal, physical set!

"What did you DO, human?! Answer me!"

The armor flickered, then fizzled out entirely. Undyne dropped a small distance to the ground, stumbling. She summoned a spear. It was the same blue hue she'd always made, until today.

"WHAT DID YOU DO?!"

Undyne hurled the spear. Even if she was reduced to the power of a regular monster, she wouldn't give up! The human dodged with ease.

"This… how… this can't be happening!"

Now the human was advancing, dragging one end of the trident on the ground behind them. Undyne wanted to be mad, but she felt drained. She felt weak.

"No… NO! You're NOT going ANYWHERE!"

She threw another spear. Her aim was getting worse. The human didn't have to move to dodge it.

"S- STOP WHERE YOU ARE!"

The human was crying. They looked very, very sad.

"I SAID S-" Undyne stumbled again. It felt like someone had sucker punched her in the middle of her chest.

A soft, white glow filled the air, it's edges tinged with a whirling rainbow of color. A monster SOUL, surrounded by six human SOULs, reached out of her chest toward the human.

"W… What are you…?"

The human dropped the trident and grabbed the monster SOUL, cradling it even as they absorbed it. The human SOULs went with it, to the human.

Undyne didn't feel any change. That hadn't been her SOUL, thankfully.

So who's had the human…? Undyne realized there was dust under her feet, as it had been under her giant, magical hand not a minute or two ago. It was Alphys' dust. The human watched Undyne, pain and fear in their eyes.

The magic fish monster, now empress of monsterkind, fell to her knees in Alphys' dust. There was nothing left to say. The human had won. Their traitorous little friend had just stolen the six SOULs.

Undyne waited for the inevitable.

It didn't come.

"Y… You would spare ME?"

The human made no move to retrieve king Asgore's trident from where they had dropped it.

"Why? WHY?"

They watched Undyne, but didn't attack.

"You killed the best of us. Turned some of us against our own."

The human continued to offer MERCY.

"Please. J… Just finish the job."

MERCY.

"I don't want your MERCY! KILL ME, DAMN IT!"

MERCY.

"I won't spare the next human that falls down here."

MERCY.

"When we get out of here, I'll re-declare war on humanity. I SWEAR IT!"

MERCY.

Undyne didn't know what to say. This human… they just couldn't make up their mind on anything. She hung her head. "Fine. Leave. Get out of here."

The human gave her one last long look.

"I SAID GET OUT, PUNK!"

The human ran for the barrier, disappearing to the other side in a flash of light.

Undyne, against all her own instincts, began to cry. She'd failed Papyrus. She'd failed Asgore. She'd failed all of monsterkind.

She hadn't been determined enough.

-RFYM-

Ring… Ring…

"heya.

"is anyone there…?

"well, i'll just leave a message.

"...

"so… it's been a while.

"since you left, things down here…

"honestly, they're about the same.

"undyne's the literal leader of the underground, now, rather than the assumed leader with asgore as a figurehead.

"she's still stoking the fires of war against humans.

"i don't think she's told anyone that the human SOULs are gone. other than me, somehow reinstated as royal scientist despite my slight… treason.

"she's riding my behind about finding a new way to break the barrier - one with a lower SOUL cost.

"i'll be honest, i don't think that's possible.

"still, i reviewed those tapes she found in alphys' lab. turns out the plan prince asriel's human friend had would've worked, if the humans on the surface hadn't killed him. send a monster with one human SOUL through, then get the other six on the human side. maybe it would work with a stronger monster.

"so, next human SOUL we get, undyne plans to pass through the barrier and personally hunt you and a bunch of other humans. as many as it takes.

"meanwhile, i've been slacking off on undyne's assignments to go knock on the door to the ruins.

"but the woman that's there hasn't been answering me. maybe she's not feeling well?

"heh.

"or maybe she's not feeling anything at all…?

"it was funny. i thought the past sanses and i had it all figured out. flowey was always the threat, right?

"well…

"until you came along.

"you were the reason flowey revealed himself, weren't you? he was that afraid of you.

"you better watch yourself, kiddo. once undyne hunts you down, i bet you'll be going all the way back to the start.

"next time i'll be watching.

"things are looking real bad for you."

Click.

-RFYM-

 **A/N:**

 **Tada! Neutral end to the Murderer!Alphys AU.**

 **Also, a reviewer in the previous chapter asked what the "** -RFYM-" **meant. When writing my How To Train Your Dragon FanFiction magnum opus (still unpublished) I began using the acronym of the story title as a divider between sections, representing a jump in character perspective or time. That habit carried over to all my other works, and it just sticks in my writing style. I should probably improve my opening information documentation to mention that in the first chapter of every story.**

 **If anyone would like to write further stories in an AU where Alphys killed the amalgamates, feel free! It isn't like I own that concept, or anything.**

 **Thank you all for reading and enjoying! Have a great day/night wherever you are!**

 **(and you: Go to sleep!)**

 **Some additional information to clear up possible questions about events in this timeline:**

 **-I do have one slight vision for the true pacifist timeline, though: Leave Alphys behind. She just has too much LOVE for that kind of run. She'll show up with Toriel at the end, just like in Undertale's True Pacifist.**

 **-Many are probably wondering where the "leftover" DETERMINATION in the DT Extractor went, and how Alphys managed to miss an amalgamate. My explanation is that Alphys didn't miss an amalgamate: A memoryhead formed itself out of the DT in the extractor after Alphys ran away to the Ruins. When Undyne managed to kill that memoryhead, she absorbed that DETERMINATION, and that's where her DT comes from in this AU.**

 **-Yes, Amalgamates are killable in this AU. They are just very hard to kill.**

 **-Only some characters have voicemail boxes. Wealthy ones with many, many human researchers working for them. Y'know, king Asgore.**

 **-Undyne doesn't have to be the photoshop/omega battle. That's just how the storyline worked out in this run. If the human kills them off early on, it might be Sans or Flowey, depending on whether the human is genocidal or still neutral.**

 **Thanks for reading!**


	6. Finalshot : Genocide

Finalshot : Genocide

-RFYM-

 **A/N:**

 **A reviewer suggested it, then the plot bunny bit me in the arm. I am, apparently, a total sucker for character death.**

 **Have… uh… fun. I guess.**

 **Oh God, what have I done?**

-RFYM-

 _One day earlier, many timelines later..._

Alphys ran like the wind through the spider tunnels. More accurately, Alphys ran like someone with a body height of 1.4 meters and a weight of 130 kilograms should run: a lot slower than she'd like.

The spiders had told her (through a halting, slow, mourning interpretative dance) that there was a human in Toriel's basement hallway. That had been all it took to send Alphys running.

Toriel would never let a human down there unless she was letting the human out into the Underground at large.

Alphys came to the spider-cave side of a false wall. Carefully, she pulled it out of the way.

Toriel's basement hallway was empty.

"H- Hello? Anyone here?"

She shuffled for the door, searching for any sign someone had passed through. She felt something like sand under her foot and looked down.

What she saw made her shriek.

-RFYM-

"Papyrus, I'm certain I'll be fine with my tea."

"NONSENSE! A DIET OF PURE SPAGHETTI IS THE ONLY PROPERLY BALANCED DIET FOR PEOPLE AS GREAT AS WE ARE! NYEH HEH HEH!"

Undyne shivered, remembering the spaghetti tea incident. That had not ended well.

Suddenly, Undyne's phone rang. Perplexed as to who would be calling her at this time of day, she answered.

"..."

"Hello? Who is this?"

"there's a human coming. snowdin forest."

"Sans?" She recognized his voice. "Wait, A HUMAN?!" Undyne's shout halted Papyrus' self-esteem student in his tracks. Under his white fur, Asgore went pale. "Where, again? I'm on my way-"

"they're covered in dust, undyne. start evacuating snowdin, i'm going to stall for time."

"SANS DON'T YOU DARE!" The line was already dead.

"UNDYNE," Papyrus asked, "IS SANS MAKING PUNS AGAIN?"

Undyne's phone groaned under the strain she put it through with her fist.

"... The last human?" Asgore asked, almost a year of self-esteem and happiness training sloughing off in an instant.

"Sans said they're covered in dust," Undyne said, voice cold. "I'm going to make SURE they're the LAST human to kill a monster!"

-RFYM-

Sans stepped out onto the path behind the dust coated human. They didn't slow a bit. He followed them for a bit until they came up to a bridge crossing a small pit.

He picked up his pace. They stopped.

"human. don't you know how to greet a new pal? t-"

Before Sans could tell them to turn around, they spun and grabbed his outstretched hand. The whoopee cushion rang out.

"heh, the old whoopee cushion in the hand trick…"

The human's face didn't even flicker.

"that's, uh, your cue to laugh. or, uh, to emote at all…?"

Not an eyelash twitched. Sans wasn't even certain they were breathing.

Under his breath, he whispered, "gee, lady, you really know how to pick 'em, huh?" He shrugged, then said in a normal tone, "OK, that's fine. everyone's got their own sense of humor."

The human snickered, then.

Sans grinned more widely. "i don't know what was funny to you, but as long as you're laughing, i guess."

The human turned back around, stepping onto the bridge.

"hey, wait, the snowdin guard dogs have stations around here, and they're looking for humans. it's dangerous to go alone."

He stumbled to catch up, reaching out to catch the hem of their sweater. The shortcut he'd been preparing at the end of the bridge flared to life and he fell through.

The human had already passed it, though. Sans found himself alone in front of the house he used to share with his brother before they both got real jobs. "uh oh."

-RFYM-

Doggo sat in the guard booth, a year-expired bottle of relish in his paw. He preferred to smoke dog treats, but with the pay cuts and guard expansions ever since Undyne got that assignment from on high, he took what fumigation he could get. Plus good treats were expensive. Businesses up in New Home didn't make 'em like they used to. Not enough demand, or something.

Something flickered. Purple, pink, a lot of gray. Was that smoke from his relish smoking? No, smoke was never purple or pink.

"Did something move? Was it my imagination? I can only see moving things."

Whatever had moved didn't move again. Cautiously he hopped over the counter of the guard station and waited for it to move again.

"If something not a human was moving, identify yoursmelf. Otherwise, I'll make sure you NEVER move again!"

He saw the pink and purple and gray moving again. Still gray? Hadn't he left his relish bong in the station? What-

Something slit through his tank top and the fur underneath. He- Damn! That hurt! It felt like he was splitting apart!

Like…

Split…

He…

-RFYM-

Sans tore through the basement of his old house, searching for something. Anything.

He'd had notes on Flowey, right? Surely he'd have made a deal with Flowey against this threat, left himself notes on how to deal with this. Unless he was the first Sans to see it…

His pulled his photo album out of a time proof drawer. There were the Flowey notes and… was that a sock with notes taped to it?

Sans flattened the sock on top of the album inside the drawer. He read the first note, scrawled directly on the hem of the sock in some kind of flaky, red substance.

"human. genocide. everyone."

The note ended there, with a splotch of the liquid and a bit of dust. Sans moved to the next one, a piece of paper torn from a notebook and taped to the sock.

"if you're reading this, congrats, know that flowey can be killed. the problem is that there's a new controller of time. a human. watch them. you lost track of them an-"

That note ended suddenly as well, in the middle of a "d."

Something within the sock crinkled. He reached in, retrieving another piece of paper.

This one was a title and a list of names.

The ninth name...

"oh damn. oh damn. damn damn damn."

-RFYM-

Alphys stepped off the bridge, following the footprints in the snow. The larger ones stopped on this side of the bridge, but the smaller ones that started immediately outside the door continued past here, over to a guard station.

She came upon the guard station which was, surprisingly, on fire. It smelled like burnt pickles. There was a patch of discolored snow directly in front of the station.

Alphys leaned down to inspect it, trying to determine if it was the starting point of the fire.

When she recognized the dust, she shrieked again.

In the trees, a figure in shadow stepped past a tree and disappeared.

-RFYM-

Undyne physically carried the librarians our of the librarby, tossing them to the guards dogs that were responding to her calls. She turned around to run to the far end of town but was stopped by the sudden appearance of a small skeleton.

"SANS! What's going on? Where's the human? Did you catch them?!"

"undyne, they got past me. also, they got doggo. it's bad."

"Got… I thought he had just knocked himself out smoking ketchup or something! You don't mean-"

"he's dead. his station is a burning wreck and his dust is right outside. tell me you got everyone out of snowdin."

Undyne flicked her gills. "Almost everyone. Papyrus just left to go check the west side for any stragglers."

Sans' eyesockets widened. "west is closer to-"

"He said he had to check, and that he'd be right back!" Undyne glanced over Sans' shoulder, then over her own. Dogamy and Dogaressa were nuzzling each other, again. "I need to make sure these dogs get these civilians through Waterfall. YOU go grab your brother."

She turned and ran over to the two dogs, berating them on their distraction.

-RFYM-

Papyrus stood at one end of the bridge, frozen.

On the other end, the human stood, covered in dusty powder.

The nice librarbians had said that Snowdrake, Chilldrake, Jerry and the Ice Caps were going to play in the forest today. If that was so, and the human was now here, then the human must have run into those kids.

"HUMAN! I AM LOOKING FOR SOME CHILDREN THAT RAN INTO THE FOREST. HAVE YOU-"

The human took a few steps onto the bridge.

"I AM THE ROYAL ESTEEM GUARD! PLEASE, LISTEN TO ME WHEN I'M TALKING. SO, DID YOU SEE ANY OF-"

They took another few steps. Some of the dust drifted onto the bridge.

"HUMAN, THAT DUSTY POWDER…"

They stopped.

"IT FEELS LIKE YOUR LIFE IS GOING DOWN A DANGEROUS PATH! HOWEVER! I, PAPYRUS, SEE GREAT POTENTIAL WITHIN YOU! EVERYONE CAN BE A GREAT PERSON, IF THEY TRY!"

The way the human stood… they looked menacing. Papyrus felt something constricting in his chest. Was it… fear? Nonsense! He could never be afraid!

"AND ME, I HARDLY HAVE TO TRY AT ALL!" He chuckled, though his signature laughter sounded… off. This was so strange! He never had to force himself to do anything… why did it feel like that laughter was forced?

The human started walking again.

"HEY! QUIT MOVING! THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT! HUMAN, I THINK YOU ARE IN NEED OF GUIDANCE! IF YOU CONTINUE ON THIS PATH, OTHERS WILL NOT SEE THE GREATNESS IN YOU THAT I DO!"

The human was very close now.

"B- BUT WORRY NOT! I, PAPYRUS, WILL BE YOUR FRIEND AND TUTOR! JUST LIKE I AM FOR KING ASGORE!"

Still closer. Papyrus threw his arms wide, trying to appear non-threatening. Trying not to look menacing, as they did.

"I WELCOME YOU WITH OPEN ARMS!"

The human jumped forward. Sans saw they were coming hand-first (a very strange way for one person to hug another) then-

CRACK!

Papyrus stumbled, just barely keeping himself from toppling off the cliff and somewhere into the forest far below. Where he had been standing, a blue shape collapsed to the ground.

"HUMAN, WHAT…?"

That blue shape caught his eyesocket. That blue shape caught his eyesocket and refused to let go.

"SANS…?"

The cracked skull of the skeleton wearing the blue hoodie turned to look at him, grinning lopsidedly. Half an eyesocket was caved into the cranial cavity. "hey… bro…"

With the sound of sand settling, Papyrus' brother's cracked face disappeared. The hoodie fluttered to the snow. "S- SANS!"

A foot entered Papyrus' vision. It stepped on the hoodie. The tall, distraught skeleton looked up at the human.

"...WHY?! WHY WOULD YOU-?!"

CRACK!

Papyrus' vision fractured…

Papyrus fractured…

Pap…

He…

-RFYM-

Undyne led point on the group as they entered into Hotland, ditching her armor as she went. The dogs could take this kind of heat, she couldn't. Not for long, anyway.

When she made it to the lab, she found the door already ajar, propped open by a ripped-up floor tile. Someone with magic had torn up the floor tile and put it there so that the door would stay open. Sans, maybe?

She ran into the lab, going first in case something dangerous presented itself. Nothing did. The screens and machines continued to hum aimlessly.

Something moving caught her eye. On a monitor, some skeleton swung their arms wide. Undyne gaped. It was Papyrus! And in front of him… was that the human?!

CRACK!

The sound echoed across the audio feed. Just behind her, one of the librarians gasped in surprise.

On screen, Sans collapsed, said something, then turned to dust. Papyrus stared in disbelief, said something to the human, then...

CRACK!

...was struck down too. Undyne felt her anger flare. Sans… Papyrus…

"Th- That nice skeleton had j- just asked about where the kids ran off to…" one of the librarians said.

Undyne turned around, her eye wide. "WHAT. KIDS?!"

-RFYM-

Monster Kid strolled through the deserted down. It was so weird! Someone left those nice clothes (for monsters with arms) on the end of the bridge, then nobody was around!

If MK could find Snowdrake (or any of the other kids) he'd have shown them the clothes. Snowdrake could totally use a new hoodie like that!

Up ahead he spotted the way to Waterfall. Since nobody was around to tell him not to go there without an adult, he decided to run on in.

It wasn't like anywhere in the Underground was really dangerous!

-RFYM-

Alphys stumbled across the bridge in a daze. The pile of dust covered in decorations… The pile of dust with the pair of sunglasses… The pile of dust soaked through with water…

The pile of dust…

The pile of dust…

Dust…

Dust…

Everywhere piles of dust.

She glanced down at her claws, half expecting to find a shard of mirror reflecting the color of her face back to her. How could any being be so vile? How could anyone have outdone the evils she had been forced to commit?

How could they commit this wipeout of monsterkind with no rhyme or reason? Why would they? What drove this human to such ends?!

Alphys felt sand and cloth under her foot. Her throat clenched and her glasses fogged before she even looked.

When she did, the horror was far worse than she'd expected.

"S- S- SANS?! N- No! SANS!"

-RFYM-

MK hopped over the disproportionately small gap. Usually, there was a bird to carry people across or some royal guardsman to toss people. That there was nobody here was weird.

It was so cool. He'd never experienced the sound of the waterfalls in so much quiet.

Up ahead he saw the lights of the cavern flickering on and off. Somebody was doing the glowing grass mazes! He ran as fast as he could, eager to pass them and then brag about it.

Undyne lived around here… maybe it was Undyne! That would be amazing!

-RFYM-

"BEHIND YOU," Undyne shouted to the echo flower. This was perfect. She'd have the human completely trapped in this dead end. This was the only path through Waterfall. They would have to come this way, and she'd be hiding: waiting for them.

She sloshed back through the water, then stomped on the glowing grass to put out any sign of the correct path. It would recover… eventually. What was important was stopping the human.

She fiddled with the buckles on her armor - still warm from sitting around on the edge of Hotland while she escorted the civilians to the lab.

Then Undyne waited.

-RFYM-

MK ran like the wind over the dark ground, tripping here and there. He was totally going to beat whoever-it-was! Especially because they kept stopping to make weird squeaks and cries.

He found the end of the path, sloshing through water. He could see an echo flower bobbing up ahead. Perfect! He'd wait for them there.

He spotted a patch of sea grass next to the flower. Maybe he could hide and scare them! Turning to hop into the grass, his tail brushed against the flower.

"BEHIND YOU," the flower whisper-shouted. That voice…

"Human!" A dark, armored figure shouted behind MK. He spun to face them, hitting the flower again in his haste.

"Human!" the flower whisper-shouted.

"You won't kill ANYONE el… What?! Who the HELL-!"

It really was! "UNDYNE! Yo! This is, like, the best day of my life! I'm, yo, your biggest fan! You're the coolest!"

"Kid, whoever you are, you've gotta get out of-" There was a splash of water. Undyne spun around to face the noise. MK leaned around her.

It was some kid - striped sweater and everything - but they were covered in some kind of weird dust. It looked almost like the snow of Snowdin, but darker and somehow not melting.

"YOU!" Undyne bellowed, "I saw what you did to Papyrus! To Sans! It ends here, human!"

MK started. That was a human?! But they were just a kid! Undyne wasn't seriously going to beat them up, was she?

"Prepare however you want. When you step forward…" She tore off her helmet, "I will KILL YOU!"

MK sprung into action, leaping between Undyne and the human. "H- Hey! U- Undyne! Th- They're j- just a kid! Y- You can't beat up kids! Y- You're in the royal g-"

"KID!" Undyne shouted, jumping at him. MK braced for getting grabbed and scolded. Adults always yelled really loudly when he did stupid things like question them.

He didn't expect the full weight of Undyne's armor to drop onto him, shoving him away from-

CLANG!

A slight splash followed the metallic collision as the human fell back into the water. Undyne coughed, struggling to get up. MK stared, shocked. "U- Undyne… You're hurt…"

"Hurt…? It's nothing." She stood up, the torn dent in the front of her armor spilling a bit of dusty powder into the water. "Go, kid! Get out of here!"

MK took a step back, finding suddenly that there wasn't a wall behind him. Taking one last look at Undyne and the human, he turned and fled.

-RFYM-

Greater Dog had a simple life. Emphasis on the had.

Before this whole human threat had started, he'd slept in his doghouse near Snowdin and occasionally taken his armor to eat at Grillby's. It was a simple existence. It worked.

Now, though, things were so much more complicated.

"Y- Yo! Hey you! U- Undyne's back there with the human! Yo, I- I think she's hurt!"

Greater Dog barked. The little monster kid kept approaching, running across the bridge.

"Yo! C- Come on! Y- You gotta help her!"

Greater Dog barked. Abandon his post? What kind of guard dog would he be then?

"Th- The human… Th- They tried to kill me! Y- You gotta stop them!"

Greater Dog barked again. Undyne did give the orders. He should protect Undyne. This kid had a point. He began to maneuver his armor suit across the bridge.

"Yo! W- Wait for me to- Woah!"

The kid stumbled and fell. Greater Dog swung his suit's spear, catching the kid's shirt before he actually fell off the bridge entirely.

"Yo! You saved me!"

Greater Dog barked.

"Arf, you're right! I'm g- gonna get more help! Arf!"

The kid ran off. Greater Dog turned to continue down the path.

-RFYM-

"D- Damn it…"

Undyne fell to one knee, struggling to draw breath.

"So even THAT power… it wasn't enough…?"

She had resisted death! She had reformed her armor, restored her own HP… And still… that damn human…

She slumped. She had nobody behind her. Nobody was watching her fight. There was nobody to avenge her, to tell Asgore to absorb the six SOULs to stop the human.

She would die, the human would kill everyone in the Underground, and nobody would ever know she had tried to stop them.

"You… You did it. You won. You're…"

Undyne felt her form splitting again. She resisted, refused, as long as she could. There had to be something…

Anything…?

"Arf?!"

Bounding metal clanks echoed from behind Undyne. No… not Greater Dog too…

The human lashed out, hopping into the air and kicking with dust-coated ballet shoes. Greater Dog gave a whimpering squeak, then his suit of armor crashed to the ground.

Undyne tried to think of something to say to the incarnation of evil before her. She couldn't think of any conversation topics. Nobody was happy with this, except that _thing_.

She couldn't think…. That _thing_...

She couldn't… _thing_ …

She…

-RFYM-

Ring…

Ring…

"Undyne? Is that you? This is the librarian."

The other end of the line was quiet, except for heavy breathing.

It was Undyne's number. Whoever picked up the phone had to be Undyne. "I think I've figured out the feed selector on the royal scientist's console. I'm switching through Waterfall right now…"

She switched the feed again. It showed a hallway floored with glowing grass. The human stood in the middle of the hallway, bent piles of armor on either side, holding a phone to its ear and staring directly at the camera.

The librarian screamed.

-RFYM-

RG 02 stood by and guarded while 01 messed with the door. Apparently, the floor tile holding the door ajar was rather heavy.

"So, like, 01, could you, like, help me move this bro?"

Grudgingly, 02 stuck a foot under the tile and tried to help lift. It didn't do much.

"Thanks! Man, working together is great! Now let's just…"

01 heaved upwards. The tile didn't budge.

"Oh… man… that's like… Undyne told us to get this door closed and stuff. How are we going to, like, do that?"

"... lesser dog?..."

"Oh yeah, bro! Great idea! Let's get Lesser Dog over here to help!" He wandered through the door, into the lab. "Hey! Lesser Dog! You in here?"

RG 02 spotted something moving further down the path. Or was that a hallucination? It was very hot here, after all. He heard a dim scream.

"Lesser Dog? Like, dogbro, why are you so hard to find?"

RG 02 jumped as a dog in a suit of armor came bounding past him, out into Hotland. Wasn't that Lesser Dog?

"Hey! LD! Like, wait up! The tile's over…" RG 01 trailed off, joining RG 02 at the door.

Lesser Dog barked and waved his sword, facing down the mirage RG 02 had seen a moment ago.

"Hey, like, 02, is that… is that human, like, covered in dust?!"

The human kicked out. Lesser Dog crumpled, his furry head disappearing inside his tiny suit of armor. Dust leaked from cracks that hadn't been there in the chest plate a moment ago.

"Oh man! Oh man! This like… Oh, this is bad!"

"... 01."

The human stepped over Lesser Dog's empty armor.

"Y- Yeah bro? Like, what do we do?!" 01 sounded hysterical.

"... after this… let's get…. ice cream."

"B- Bro! I d- don't like, think there will be an after this and stuff!"

"... team attack… let's go…"

02 stepped forward to stop the human. 01 followed, hesitantly and shaking in his armor.

They didn't stand a chance.

-RFYM-

As Alphys wandered through the paths of glowing grass, she felt like she was losing her mind. Many of the paths now looked like dead ends, the grass covered in piles of dust.

The horror had almost worn off on her. Almost.

She stepped off the end of the next path into a pool of water. A little further on the path dead-ended by an echo flower. To her left, though, she could just make out another glowing grass path.

And the two piles of metal that lay there.

There was a large suit of armor, like someone big and strong would wear, and a small pool of metal mixed with dust, like the metal had become molten and combined with the monster within.

It almost reminded Alphys of the DETERMINATION experiments.

A cell phone lay on the ground by the puddle of metal and dust. She picked it up, noting that it was still connected to somewhere.

"N- No! Please, don't… there are _children_ here! We're not fighters! P- Please, g- go away!"

She closed her eyes, her glasses fogging up. She held her breath.

"S- Stop! D- Don't come any closer! I- I still know a few magic bullet patterns!"

Alphys dropped the phone as the other end filled with screaming.

As she'd listened, her feet had carried her further along. She was crossing over a river, now, nearing a ticker sign. If she recalled the area near her lab correctly, there was an elevator station just ahead.

Maybe, just maybe, she could get ahead of this person. Maybe she could save some lives.

She hustled into a running pace.

-RFYM-

"What a shame." Muffet giggled. "A human comes through and they aren't even fit to be eaten~"

The human lashed out with the edge of their frying pan, trying to cut their way through the webbing toward her. To Muffet's surprise, the silly human's strategy was actually working.

"Oh well! Rotten ingredients can always be discarded~"

Muffet told her spiders to attack. They swarmed over the webs, toward the human. The human crushed them by the dozens.

"There's no need to fight, human~" They were getting close now, and the cost in spider lives was nearing the hundreds. "Give up, dearie. Haven't you done enough damage already?"

The human swung again, slashing through the webbing at chest height. Muffet's five eyes went wide as the human leaped over the web and swung again.

The frying pan's edge connected between two of her arms. It felt like that one blow was splitting her apart!

...splitting her apart!

...splitting her…

...split…

-RFYM-

Alphys heaved for air as she made it to the top of the staircase. The royal memorial apartment complex shone ahead of her, twinkling sweetly against the dark of the cavern roof. She barged through the door as quickly as she could.

"E- Everyone into the elevator to New Home! N- Now!"

The doorman - a tiny, triangular monster - frowned at her. "Ma'am, you can't come running in here ordering us to evacuate. People have lives here, y'know. If we need to go, that's something for the Royal Guard to handle."

Alphys stomped her foot, a bit of dust slipping off her scales to rest on the carpet. "The royal g- guard is d- dead! The human is coming! We h- have to g- get you out of here and s- seal New Home off!"

The doorman stared at the dust on the carpet. "That dust! W- Where-?!"

"Both of my friends," Alphys growled darkly.

-RFYM-

Vulkin hopped up and down, spilling lava onto the path. He was going to stop the murder human! He was going to try his best! Everyone who tried their best was a winner!

"Ahh! Ahh! Does my best!"

The human snickered, then swung their frying pan. It…

Vulkin…

He…

-RFYM-

Alphys watched the elevator ascend from the bottom of the shaft, a screwdriver in her mouth and her hands buried in the electrical panel. This was the second load of people, and the last.

They didn't have time for more, so they'd stuffed everyone into the elevator as best they could. No belongings, just people.

The elevator halted at its stop, far above. Alphys yanked on the cables in the box, disconnecting them. The shaft plunged into darkness.

Good. That was those people saved. Now she-

The panel sparked. Somebody had pressed the elevator request button. Thankfully, Alphys had disconnected that. Still, who could've…

Alphys peeked out through the crack under the door. A dusty pair of ballet shoes peeked back.

She considered screaming but realized that would probably get her killed. (Not that getting killed was necessarily a bad thing.) Instead, she held her breath.

The human walked off, toward the CORE. Alphys let her breath go. Safety.

-RFYM-

Final Froggit and Whimsalot worked together, boxing the human in. Astigmatism joined the fight, sending spiraling patterns through that box.

The human strolled out of the box, taking the bites of the flies and moths like it was nothing.

Whimsalot went first, their faceplate split down the middle by the human's Empty Gun. Astigmatism was next, its eye caved inwards by the force of the blow.

Final Froggit whimpered, summoning all the flies it could muster.

It wasn't enough. The handle of the gun came down…

Final…

-RFYM-

Alphys ran, stumbling, toward the lab. The under-lab had an elevator to Asgore's castle. If whoever was the new royal scientist had fixed up things down there, she had a chance of cutting the human off again.

In fact… she could warn Asgore. Better yet, if she could retrieve the leftover DETERMINATION...

She ran faster, passing the three piles of armor and entering the lab proper. She tried not to think about the dust lying everywhere as she ran for the True Lab elevator.

It responded when she pressed the call button. She took a few deeper breaths, then hit the button to descend.

The doors closed, and she began to descend back into the place of her nightmares.

-RFYM-

Knight Knight swung her Morningstar, which the human deftly avoided.

It was maddening. She had been working here hardly a week - more as brawn than for brains - and yet suddenly this one human decided to wipe out all of the CORE's customers! Without anyone to turn off light switches and puzzles, electricity use had been through the cavern roof!

She swung again, just as the human spun around and brought down the handle of their Empty…

She…

-RFYM-

Alphys stared at the screen of the DT Extractor for a good half minute.

Where the heck had the DETERMINATION gone?

Eventually, she pulled herself from that state. She and Asgore would just have to take on the human without resistance to death. The power of the Six SOULs should still be more than enough.

She hoped, anyway, as she ran for the elevator that would take her to Asgore's castle.

-RFYM-

The elevator hummed merrily. It had a passenger! It mattered not who the passenger was, nor why. All that mattered was that, after so long not moving anyone, somebody wished to be moved.

The human bit into a Bicicle, eating it greedily. Could the elevator feel annoyance, it might've felt some about the bits of melted icicle dripping onto its floor, or the trail of dust the human had tracked inside.

As it was, the elevator hummed merrily. It had a passenger!

-RFYM-

Alphys ran up the golden hallway. Something felt distinctly wrong about tracking dust in here, but she didn't have time to clean herself up. She had to get to Asgore. She had to warn him.

-RFYM-

Toriel had been right. All along she had been right.

His choices may have given the people hope, but all it gave him was EXP and LOVE.

Breathing heavily and staring at his wrecked throne, it took Asgore a moment to hear the soft sound of plant stems breaking underfoot.

One set of footsteps.

He turned. "Howdy! I'm sorry about the mess, I was…"

His happy explanation for the sad state of his throne was cut short by what he saw.

"D- Doctor Alphys. I… It has been some time. I was worried you had come to harm over the years that have passed. Would you like a cup of tea…? Er..."

There was something else. She looked… battered. Her feet were coated in some kind of… was that dust? She didn't let him continue to speak. "A- Asgore, they're dead. The Ruins through H- Hotland, e- everyone's dead. I sealed off New H- Home b- but…"

Alphys shook. It looked like she was struggling to keep herself together, in an emotional rather than physical sense. Asgore descended from his throne, patting her. "Calm down. What is it?"

"Y- You have to absorb the Six SOULs. Y- You HAVE to."

Asgore froze. He… he couldn't. Toriel… His own guilt…

"Th- They're coming here next. I- It's the only route. Y- You have to go absorb them now!"

Asgore closed his eyes. This just wasn't something he could do. Maybe… "Take them."

"W- What?!"

"Go into the next room. The Barrier room. Take seven steps in, turn around, then check the floor for a button."

"B- But-"

Asgore smiled. It made sense, now. "This is punishment for my crimes. Do not let anyone else suffer for what I chose to do to all the human children that-"

Asgore was distracted by the sound of crying. It sounded so familiar, yet hundreds of years old. How could it be so similar to his…

"Asriel?"

One of the flowers in his garden turned around, looking up at him. "I- I m- messed up! They… they killed everyone and they're gonna kill me, too!"

Asgore heard footsteps. Alphys was making her way toward the door. Good.

"Dad, I'm sorry! I'm sorry, okay? I didn't know that they'd be like this! I didn't know they'd turn out like me!"

Asgore knelt by the sobbing flower. It had a face… it looked so much like him…

"Of course they turned out like me, right? That's what DETERMINATION does, doesn't it? Oh my…" The flower trailed off, staring past Asgore. "F-"

"LANGUAGE!" Asgore roared. There were certain things he would tolerate, but foul mangling of speech was not one of them. The flower vanished into the floor, and Asgore spun around to look at whatever it had seen.

It was… Well, it was very strange. If he had to guess he would say it was some kind of dust monster, but he'd never seen one of those before. The closest thing he could think of was a snow monster like Ice Cap, but, then, that one looked like ice.

"You must be the one that flower just warned me about."

It stared at him.

"Erm… what kind of monster are you? Sorry, I cannot tell."

It took a step forward. Asgore noticed a glint of metal in its hand - the knife he had gotten for Chara so many years ago. This monster… were they threatening him with his adopted child's own gift?!

"Now, now. There's no need to fight. Why not settle this over a nice cup of tea?"

It lashed out, slashing through his chest plate like it wasn't there. Finally, Asgore recognized the shape of the thing that had just struck him down.

It was a human child, coated head to toe in dust.

Asgore's world shrank to a pinprick, then dissolved. All he could feel was his SOUL. He, it, was shuddering. Any moment he-

He felt a tug, a pull. He felt… absorbed.

He…

-RFYM-

Alphys stood in the Barrier room, facing the door. The Six SOULs… they were powerful. She could feel all that magical energy pulsing through her, from the tips of her claws to the ends of the ridges on her head.

If this wasn't enough to stop the human, nothing on the earth was.

The human appeared in the doorway, the air around them choking with dust. Alphys' magic examined them. Within them, she could feel Asgore's SOUL.

"H… Hey. So you're the one who killed all my friends."

The human didn't respond. It hadn't been a question, anyway.

"Y- You know, I killed fourteen other monsters when an experiment went wrong."

The human's face didn't move a bit.

"I n- never forgave myself for that."

The human took a step forward, into the room.

"I th- think I'll be able to forgive myself for ending YOU."

Alphys summoned her first attack. With all the new magical energy of the SOULs, she could exert real force on the world. So rather than sending lightning shaped magic bullets at the human as she might've if she were weaker, Alphys summoned real, electrical lighting.

The human grinned.

-RFYM-

The explosion of the cesium-water steam cannons that insane lizard had conceived left the room flooded with water vapor. Flowey couldn't see a thing.

Suddenly, the footsteps of both the human and the lizard monster came shockingly close. Asriel prepared to duck under the floor, to escape.

There was a snicking sound, like a knife landing home. Alphys fell to the floor next to him, emerging out of the fog like a messenger of death.

A knife was buried in her face, through the bridge of her glasses. Her eyes flicked weakly toward him, then she dissolved into dust.

The knife clunked to the floor with shocking finality. The human's foot followed it, stepping between Asriel and the lizard monster's dust. The human retrieved the knife, stood, then smiled down at him.

"W- We did it Chara! Every last one of 'em! We killed them all! Together!"

Chara planted their feet on either side of him. He tried not to flinch.

"See, back on the surface? That was all a misunderstanding! I never meant to get in your way! I- I still won't!"

Flowey spotted several glowing spots in the Alphys' dust. He reached out a vine, shuffling through the dust without taking his eyes of Chara. He found what he was looking for: the six human SOULs.

"S- See, Chara? I- I've got the SOULs! W- We could be a team again, Chara!" He held up the SOULs on a vine. "I can help you! I can be useful to you!"

Chara slashed at the vine presenting the SOULs to her. It broke off, fizzling into dust. The SOULs shattered.

"I can…"

Chara grinned down at him, maliciously.

"I can…"

They raised their knife.

"PLEASE DON'T KILL ME!" Asriel squeaked.

The knife slashed down, and Flowey's world dissolved into pain.

-RFYM-

 **A/N:**

 **RFYM Genocide.**

 **Someone suggested it, I answered.**

 **Seriously, though. This fic needs to end. This is the last add-on I'm doing, especially during finals.**

 **Thanks for reading! Have a wonderful day/night!**


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